Defending Politics

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This collection of Bernard Crick's writings comprises everything he ever wrote for The Political Quarterly - articles, reviews, all assignable commentaries, and the first chapter of his abandoned history of the journal - from the late 1950s to 2008. The earliest pieces coincide with his arrival as a new lecturer at the LSE, fresh from teaching in the United States and the publication of his first book The American Science of Politics, and the collection follows his ideas, insights and preoccupations through his years as author of the classic In Defence of Politics and his biography of Orwell, to his later work with the Home Office on citizenship and articles written in the last year of his life. Within a few years of writing his first piece for the journal he was one of its coeditors, working alongside the formidable founding editor William Robson. Retiring after a decade as coeditor, he served for another twelve years as the first long-standing chair of the PQ board, and for a further seven years after that as the journal's Literary Editor - a role originally invented for Leonard Woolf. How was it that a person universally described in his 2008 obituaries as ambitious, self-centred and personally difficult could assume such an important role in the collective enterprise of The Political Quarterly? To a great extent, it was because his personal projects coincided with PQ's mission. His drive pulled PQ along with him to their mutual benefit, and helped to see the journal through a difficult period after its founding editors faded away. But he also had a lifelong and deep regard for his 'beloved' journal in its own right. This definitive collection, unrivalled in its depth and span of years, shows Bernard Crick very much on his own terms, revelling in the freedom offered by PQ's unique authorial environment. His writings cover such perennial (and PQ) issues as public policy, governance, parliamentary reform, education, citizenship, the fortunes of the Labour party, and the evolution of leftward politics in the UK. Newly re-edited and with an Introduction by PQ's Assistant Editor Stephen Ball, the collection reveals the intellectual and political development, as well as the wit and style, of one of the most intriguing public intellectuals of the post-war period.