Synopsis:
Harold Laski was one of the leading British intellectuals of the 20th century. His life abounded in dramatic confrontations, reversals and triumphs; his teaching and writing transformed the landscape of the democratic socialist left in Britain and the United States. Born in 1893, Harold Laski was one of the creators of the Labour Party. He embodied many of its contradictions. As this biography shows, understanding Laski's life helps explain the Labour Party's weakness today and the whole Left's and Britain's current tormented state. Laski was a passionate socialist committed to "revolution by consensus", and was also the close friend of the great and the good, including American Presidents, Supreme Court judges and all the notable British and European figures on the Left. A tireless scholar and writer, he needed to be centre stage, but was often treated as an outsider. He shaped the Labour manifestoes throughout the 1930s and for the 1945 landslide victory of the party who wanted moderation above all else.
From Publishers Weekly:
Tireless apostle of democratic socialism, prolific journalist, British Labour Party activist, Zionist and London School of Economics political science professor, Harold Laski (1893-1950) for a time was the most influential socialist thinker in the English-speaking world, yet his reputation is in eclipse today. This vigorous, balanced biography depicts an electric personality "riven by contradictions." Fiercely egalitarian yet personally prone to elitism and cultural snobbery, Laski positioned himself as an alienated outsider while cultivating friendships with Franklin Roosevelt, Felix Frankfurter, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Edward R. Murrow, among others. The authors perceptively discuss Laski's marriage to Fabian socialist Frida Kerry, his sensational 1946 political libel suit against a British newspaper, which he lost, and his attempt to fuse Marxism with a commitment to civil liberties, a decentralized economy and pluralist politics in an egalitarian society. Kramnick is a Cornell professor of government, Sheerman a Labour Member of Parliament. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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