Harold J. Laski

Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham (Dodo Press) Harold J. Laski

Harold Joseph Laski (1893-1950) was an English political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, and served as the chairman of the Labour Party. After attending Manchester Grammar School and New College, Oxford University, Laski became a member of the executive committee of the socialist Fabian Society, and in 1936 he joined the Executive Committee of the Labour Party. In 1926 he was appointed professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics. He was active on the American university lecture circuit. He had a massive impact on the politics and the formation of India, having taught a generation of future Indian leaders at the LSE. It is almost entirely due to him that the LSE has a semi-mythological status in India. He was steady in his unremitting advocacy of the independence of India. He was a revered figure to Indian students at the LSE. Among his most famous works are: Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham (1920), Karl Marx (1922), and Marx and Today (1943).