Harold Laski: A Life on the Left.

• Author: Karson, Marc

In the second quarter of the Twentieth Century, Harold Laski was a legend to the politically conscious the world over. A noted socialist theorist, he published a major work almost yearly. He was political activist, a member of the British Labour Party's National Executive Committee from 1937 to 1949, and its chairman in 1945.

He was a confidant and adviser to government leaders in several countries. His name was almost synonymous with the London School of Economics, where his brilliant lectures made him a favorite of students - like myself, who chose LSE because of his presence. His list of friends reads like a Who's Who of prominent names in political and intellectual circles.

Following Laski's death, conservative historian Max Beloff wrote, "Just as we call the period 1840 to 1870 ... the |Age of John Stuart Mill,' so too the future historian may talk of the period between 1920 and 1950 as the |Age of Laski.'" James Callaghan, Labour Prime Minister in the late 1970s, wrote that wherever he traveled he "was bound to meet a distinguished academic, administrator, or politician who would boast that he had been taught by Laski." While Laski's goal was not to mold students to his own convictions - it was to stimulate them to read, think, and discuss - he showed by example that learning should be used in the social struggle of one's times.

Six books on Laski have been published, but the authors of these two new volumes realized that the others have their limitations. Michael Newman saw the need for a more scholarly analysis of Laski's "development over time" as political philosopher and activist. Isaac Kramnick and Barry Sheerman felt that a complete biography of Laski the man, based on extensive research, has not been done. The authors of both books can be credited with fulfilling their objectives. They have also done a service that will endear them to those who knew Laski and were saddened by the distorted image of him gaining ascendancy after his death in 1950 - that of the "Red Professor."

Newman shatters the character assassination by Herbert Deane in The Political Ideas of Harold Laski, published in 1955. Deane wrote that, after 1931, Laski was "calling for faith and fervor rather than reason and persuasion" and was "the prophet if not the advocate of violent revolution and dictatorship as the inevitable road to the new socialist society." Newman quotes Laski's various denunciations of the Soviet dictatorship and his well-reasoned...