SOURCE: "Laski's Legacy," in Harold Laski: A Life on the Left, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1993, pp. 580-92.

In the following excerpt, Kramnick and Sheerman recount events that occurred in the decades following Laski's death and evaluate his overall influence.

'No one can teach politics who does not know politics at first hand,' Laski wrote in 1939, and he practised what he preached. Few people in the twentieth century have lived two such totally complete lives as scholar and politician as he did. After his death he was remembered and honoured in both worlds. The Labour Party's annual conference in 1950 approved a resolution remembering 'with gratitude and affection the outstanding service rendered to the labour movement, the cause of international solidarity and human freedom, by the late Harold Laski'. The resolution's mover spoke of his contribution over the years to the formation of socialist policy and his role...