Burley Fisher Books

The Ernest Thorp Collection

Ernest Thorp was a lecturer in Modern Political Thought in the Government Department at London School of Economics from the 1960s until 2003. He was hired by the conservative philosopher and theorist Michael Oakenshott, after an idiosyncratic hiring process: After completing his undergraduate degree at the LSE, Thorp worked for a bank. One day, Michael Oakeshott came into that same bank and appeared to offer him the position of a lecturer. After a short and inconclusive conversation over lunch, the young Thorp was convinced his candidacy had been rescinded. Yet, a couple of months later, he received a short letter from the LSE bursar with the key to the staff lavatory. This was how Thorp discovered that he had been appointed and was emblematic of the Government Department hiring procedures in place at the time. While Thorp was what would now be termed as research-inactive , he was known for his brilliant and incisive teaching. One colleague, Brendan O Leary, commented that he
View the Full Catalogue