The American Presidency: An Interpretation: manuscript

Harold Joseph Laski was a British political theorist and an active member of the British Labour Party. Laski was born on June 30, 1893, in Manchester, England. In 1911, Laski married Frieda Kerrey.

Laski graduated from Oxford University in 1914 and began an influential political and academic career. Laski left England in 1914 and accepted teaching appointments at Montreal's McGill University (1914-1916) and Harvard University (1916-1920). While teaching at Harvard, Laski cultivated friendships with a number of influential political figures, including Supreme Court justices Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Louis Brandeis.

In 1920, Laski returned to England, where he became an active member of the Labour Party. In 1926, he became a political science professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he taught until his death in 1950. Following the Great Depression, Laski's political and academic work was increasingly shaped by Marxist theory. During the 1930s and 1940s, Laski published a number of works on political science, including The State in Theory and Practice (1935), The Rise of European Liberalism: An Essay in Interpretation (1936), and The American Democracy: A Commentary and Interpretation (1948). In 1945, Laski was elected to serve as the Labour Party chairman; however, his tenure was largely ineffective due to tensions between Laski and Prime Minister Clement Attlee.

Laski died on March 24, 1950, in London.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica