Ghiţa Ionescu 1913–96: Freedom and Politics

Abstract

Ghiţa Ionescu's Formal Academic Career Began When He reached the London School of Economics in 1963, at the age of fifty. Within three years he had published three books and become the founder-editor of Government and Opposition. He went on to edit the journal for the next thirty-one years and to bring the total number of his books to fourteen, five of them comprising a brilliant series on the East European communist states and the rest mainly on the challenges, both internal and external, facing the liberal democracies in advanced industrial society. He became Professor of Government at the University of Manchester and chairman, for over two decades, of the Research Committee on European Unification of the International Political Science Association. He inspired and energized countless students and colleagues. The main purpose of this article is to explore the significance of these achievements. But first, a word about the motive forces behind them.