Harold Laski And American Liberalism

"The British scholar and pundit Harold J. Laski exercised tremendous influence on American intellectuals from the era of World War I to that of the early Cold War. Best combines pathbreaking narrative with a trenchant critique of Laski's analysis of American life and policy. The research is thorough, the prose clear. The work makes a real contribution."—Justus D. Doenecke, Professor of History, New College of Florida, Sarasota "Britian's Harold Laski (1893-1950) was one of the most influential public intellectuals of his time. Unlike others to whom he can be compared, such as Raymond Aron in France and Walter Lippmann in the United States, Laski was a major force on both sides of the Atlantic. Best traces Laski's evolution from pluralism to Marxism." - Wilson Quarterly For nearly three decades, the English political scientist Harold Laski was the gray eminence of American liberalism and its most influential Marxist public intellectual. As a fervent proponent of the New Deal in the 1930s, much of Laski's success stemmed from the fact that he offered answers when so many Americans had only questions. By the postwar years, however, his reputation was in decline and his influence left the Democratic Party vulnerable in the1948 elections. In Harold Laski and American Liberalism Gary Dean Best traces the trajectory of Laski's American career and accounts for its ultimate failure.

American politics and society were central to Laski's intellectual enterprise. As Best shows, probably no one residing in America has published as many words critical of the United States as did this Englishman. Virtually no aspect of American life went unscathed, and yet at the root of every attack was American capitalism, the businessman, those with property, who, in Laski's view were the source of all the perversion of American life.

The 1930s was a period of ferment among America's intellectuals. By the 1940s it was only Laski who was bewildered—at the failure of his diagnoses and the rejection of his prescriptions even by those who had been captivated by him in the previous decade. By the time he died, in 1950, his earlier pronouncements seemed wide of the mark, and the increased stridency and shrillness produced by his disappointment had begun to bore even many who had been devoted to him in earlier years.

As this volume shows, the real tragedy for Laski was that he allowed his intellect to be captured and held captive by the Marxian dialectic, denying himself the use of his own reason despite that dialectic's repeated failures. Harold Laski and American Liberalism will be of interest to intellectual historians, political scientists, and American studies specialists.

Gary Dean Best is professor emeritus of history at the University of Hawaii. Among his books are The Dollar Decade: Mammon and Machine in 1920s America, The Retreat from Liberalism: Collectivists versus Progressives in the New Deal Years, The Life of Herbert Hoover, and The Nickel and Dime Decade: American Popular Culture in the 1930s.

This book was originally written as a historical treatise to demonstrate "that the development of economic ties between Russia and China is the logical outcome of a centuries old friendship between these neighboring peoples, a friendship which accords with their fundamental interests and is of general bene?t to all mankind." In the post-Soviet and post-Maoist era, these consensual tendencies are even stronger.

Gary Dean Best retired after thirty years of teaching history in the University of Hawaii system. He is the author of fifteen books and numerous essays for books and scholarly journals, including Harold Laski and American Liberalism published by Transaction.