Review: LSE: A History of the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1895–1995
| Published date | 01 March 1997 |
| Date | 01 March 1997 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209705200123 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
18o
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
A
DEMOCRACY
OF
DESPOTS
Donald
Murray
Boulder
co:
Westview,
xii,
259pp,
US$66.oo
cloth,
US$17.00
paper
Don
Murray
was
the
CBC
correspondent
in
Moscow
from
1988
to
1994,
from
the
demise
of
the
Soviet
Union
under
Mikhail
Gorbachev
to
the
rise
of
a
new Russia
under
Boris
Yeltsin.
Throughout
this
period
the
West
has
persisted
in evaluating
political
events
based
on
whether
its
man
-
be
it
Gorbachev
or
Yeltsin
-
was
winning.
Murray
focusses
on
the
progress
of
democracy
and
its
antithesis,
the
accumulation
and
exercise
of
power
by
a
single
individual. This
book
is
an
extraordinarily
impor-
tant
re-orientation
of our
conception
of
Russian
politics,
past,
present,
and
future.
And
more,
its
a
great
read.
LSE
A
history
of
the
London
School
of
Economics
and
Political
Science,
1895-1995
Ralf
Dahrendorf
Oxford
University Press,
1995,
520pp,
US$68.95
Written
by
a
former director
for
LSE'S
centenary,
this
book
is
at
its
best
in
its
thoughtful
and
sometimes
amusing
descriptions
of
faculty
and
stu-
dents
who
have
spent
time
at
the
school,
the interactions
between
the
departments and
their
larger
disciplines
in
the
social
sciences,
and
the
school's
connections
with
major
events
and
public
policies
in
2oth
cen-
tury Britain. It
is
at
its
most
bland
in
its
long
passages
on governance
and
management
at
the
school
and
in
its
dry
descriptions
of
the
conduct
and
follies
of
a
succession
of
directors,
a
source
of
excitement
only
to
the
most
repressed
voyeur.
But
the book
tells its
central
tale
well:
that
a
vari-
ety
of
forces
and
personalities
combined
fortuitously
to
make
a
dowdy
set
of
buildings in
central
London
a
key
centre
in
the
development
of
the
social
sciences.
Highlights
include
the
unlikely
tale
of
the
founding
by
the
likes
of
George
Bernard
Shaw,
Sidney
alid
Beatrice Webb,
and
Bertrand
Russell,
the
relocation
of
the
'socialist'
school
to
Cambridge
during
the
Second
World
War,
and
the
student
unrest of
the
196os.
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