Life of R. H. Tawney

Lawrence Goldman is a Fellow and Tutor in History at St. Peter's College, University of Oxford, UK and the Editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

• Introduction1. Calcutta, Rugby, Oxford, Whitechapel 2. Courtship and Marriage 3. Workers' Education 4. The Somme 5. Reconstruction after the First World War: Coal6. Tawney between the Wars 7. Socialism and Christianity8. Education9. History10. London and Washington: The Second World War11. Last Things: 1945-6212. Conclusion: Politics, Reputation and StylePost Script: Tawney Fifty Years onNotesIllustrations Bibliography Index

Although there have been earlier studies of Tawney’s life and thought that were broadly biographical in structure, Lawrence Goldman’s is the first to be based on a full examination of the surviving archives, including family papers hitherto closed to researchers. The resulting book is notably thorough, judicious and fair-minded. It is also – and this is something that can be said of all too few biographies – informed by a disciplined understanding of the main currents of the political, social and economic history that provided the setting for Tawney’s work. And, to his great credit, Goldman is not inclined to exaggerate his subject’s importance.