Ralph Miliband

Ralph Miliband was associated with LSE for over 30 years of his academic life. He became an LSE student in 1941, when the School was evacuated to Cambridge, having landed in Dover on the last boat from occupied Belgium, and stayed at the School as a postgraduate under Harold Laski, and subsequently as a lecturer until 1972.

This connection with LSE was only interrupted by a three-year war-time service in the British Navy from 1943-46. He left the School in 1972 to take up an appointment as professor of politics at the University of Leeds, and later in North America, at Brandeis, Boston, and York University, Toronto. His last post was as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the City University of New York's Graduate Centre.

Throughout his life he was a passionate socialist, whose focus was the analysis of Western democracy and politics. He was an inspiring teacher who enthused a generation of students and colleagues through his commitment to rigorous intellectual work and his writings. His books include:

• Parliamentary Socialism: a study in the politics of Labour
• The State in Capitalist Society
• Marxism and Politics 
• Socialism for a Sceptical Age

Additionally, Ralph Miliband's biography by Michael Newman, Ralph Miliband and the Politics of the New Left (Merlin Press, 2002), was launched as part of the Miliband Programme in October 2002 at the LSE. The panel discussion that introduced the book included Professors Anthony Giddens, Mary Kaldor, Leo Panitch as well as Tony Benn and Hilary Wainwright.