Maurice Dobb

Even Maurice Dobb's critics, and there were many, acknowledged that he was one of the world's most significant Communist economists. From his outpost at the University of Cambridge, where he was a protégé of John Maynard Keynes and mentor to students ranging from Eric Hobsbawm to Amartya Sen, Dobb made himself into one of British communism's premier intellectuals. Until now, this remarkable life has been all but forgotten. Yet following Dobb's life from his birth in 1900 to his death in 1976 does more than just recover the career of one of modern Britain's most paradoxical thinkers. It reveals a surprising history that casts new light on the connections that bound economics, politics, and power together in the twentieth century-a history whose legacy still endures, long after the Soviet Union's fall.