 His paternal grandfather, Joseph Poliakoff, was a prolific inventor of electrical devices who experienced the communist revolution in Russia first-hand, and emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1924.Poliakoff was educated at Westminster School followed by King's College, Cambridge, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1969, and a PhD in 1973, for research supervised by J.J. Turner.While an undergraduate at Cambridge, Poliakoff met and became close friends with Tony Judt, who later became a historian and writer.