Harold J. (Harold Joseph) Laski

Born in Manchester on June 30, 1893, Harold Joseph Laski became one of the best-known political theorists in Britain. He studied at New College, Oxford, taught in North America early in his career, and then joined the London School of Economics, where he spent most of his working life and became a leading public intellectual.

Laski wrote widely on politics, law, liberty, and the state. His ideas changed over time, but he is especially remembered for his writing on pluralism, democracy, and socialism, and for books such as Authority in the Modern State and A Grammar of Politics. His work was read not only by specialists but also by general readers interested in the big political questions of the day.

He was deeply involved in public life as well as academic life, serving as chairman of the British Labour Party from 1945 to 1946. Laski died in London on March 24, 1950, but he remains an important figure in twentieth-century political thought because of the range of his writing, his teaching, and his role in the public arguments of his time.