The State in Theory and Practice - Softcover

Laski, Harold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1412808316 ISBN 13: 9781412808316

Publisher: Routledge, 2008

Synopsis

This timeless classic by Harold J. Laski explains the nature of the modern state by examining its characteristics, as revealed by its history. The State in Theory and Practice is a work that grows in significance, rather than dwindles over time. This is because, as Sidney A. Pearson, Jr. points out, Laski helped develop and expound the foundational arguments of the political left.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, even on the hard left, few people thought of Marxism, at least in its classical formulation by Laski in the 1930s, as a political alternative. Much of the interest in Laski seeks to separate the early Laski of pluralist parliamentary arguments from the later Laski of Marxism. Laski's appeal rests on subtle aspects of his science of politics that require a detailed examination before their full significance can be understood. The state is a work that operates at several layers of assumptions and implications.

The significance of Laski starts with the observation that among many intellectuals on the left, the political critique of liberal democracy remains as influential after the collapse of the Soviet Union as it was when Laski wrote. The leftist critique of classical liberalism is one of the touchstones of modern political thought and Laski remains part of that tradition. Laski is one of the links between what might be called the "old left" of the pre-World War II era and the "new left" of the 1960's and later.

About this title

About the Author:

Harold J. Laski (1893-1950) was an esteemed British political scientist, economist, author, and lecturer. He taught at McGill and Harvard Universities. From 1926 until his death he was professor of political science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His works includeKarl Marx, Democracy in Crisis, The American Presidency, and The Rise of European Liberalism.

Review:

“There is an unwelcome similarity between the financial crisis of 2009 and the debilitating economic conditions in which Harold Laski wrote this 1935 work. Sidney Pearson's introduction to this new edition emphasizes the important lessons to be learned from that commonality and from Laski's Marxist analysis, now that the specifics of the Soviet Union can be separated from the theory of dialectical materialism. The relevance is clearly present and merits consideration... Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” 

—A. C. Wyman, Choice

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1412808316
• ISBN 13: 9781412808316
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352