Lionel Robbins

Biography of a major twentieth-century English economist who was a key player in the development of economics as an academic subject.

Susan Howson (Author)

9781107002449, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 September 2011

1176 pages, 30 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 6.9 cm, 1.68 kg

'This is, no doubt, a decisive work on the life of Lionel Robbins, the economist who is probably safe to be viewed as having left a greater legacy on contemporary British society than on the history of economic thought … the book is not exclusively written for an audience of economists. Historians interested in British art policy, for instance, will surely profit from this book, and historians working on the US-UK negotiation during WWII will also gain another window to this high-profile, very complex, international policy-making process … It is, no doubt, a great work by a prominent historian; the scope is broad and the treatment of each issue is even-handed.' Norikazu Takami, Journal of the History of Economic Thought

By the time of his death the English economist Lionel Robbins (1898–1984) was celebrated as a 'renaissance man'. He made major contributions to his own academic discipline and applied his skills as an economist not only to practical problems of economic policy – with conspicuous success when he served as head of the economists advising the wartime coalition government of Winston Churchill in 1940–45 – and of higher education – the 'Robbins Report' of 1963 – but also to the administration of the visual and performing arts that he loved deeply. He was devoted to the London School of Economics, from his time as an undergraduate following active service as an artillery officer on the Western Front in 1917–18, through his years as Professor of Economics (1929–62), and his stint as chairman of the governors during the 'troubles' of the late 1960s. This comprehensive biography, based on his personal and professional correspondence and other papers, covers all these many and varied activities.

Introduction
1. Father and son
2. The Great War
3. Postwar
4. The London School of Economics
5. Iris Gardiner
6. New College Oxford
7. The young professor
8. Fritz and Lionel
9. The School in the mid 1930s
10. The approach of war
11. The economics of war
12. Director of the Economic Section
13. Anglo-American conversations
14. The Law Mission and the Steering Committee
15. 1944
16. The last months of the war
17. The postwar settlement
18. Return to the School
19. The end of the transition
20. LSE in the early 1950s
21. Chairman of the National Gallery
22. Lord Robbins
23. The Robbins Report
24. The sixties
25. The arts
26. The troubles at LSE
27. Retirement
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Political economy [KCP], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW]