R.H. Tawney is an iconic thinker in British left-wing circles, whose writings during the early-mid 20th century helped to forge the direction of democratic socialist thinking and Labour Party policies. This book provides a fresh and accessible guide to the ideas of Tawney for new readers and to set straight the record of what Tawney s political thought really is, warts and all, in place of the rather over-simplified picture painted by the major commentators. It shows how Tawney s ideas changed over nearly 40 years of writing, as his own life experiences and the traumatic events of the two World Wars and their aftermaths drew him to a more secular and practical interpretation of politics. The book renders a service to scholarship, being based on original research, including examination of the Tawney Archive at the LSE, and makes use of unpublished works of Tawney.
