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Sheard Sally , The Passionate Economist: How Brian Abel-Smith Shaped Global Health and Social Welfare (Bristol : The Policy Press , 2014), pp.ￂ xv, 581, £40.00, hardback, ISBN:ￂ 978-1-44731-484-4.
Book Review
Brian Abel-Smith (1926-96) was one of the leading figures in British social policy in the mid- and late twentieth century and Sally Sheard has done an excellent job in bringing to life the wide range of interests and intellectual concerns of this fascinating and historically important, if challenging, individual. Born into an upper-middle-class family (he was distantly related to the Queen), Abel-Smith was educated at Haileybury School before taking an economics degree at Cambridge. Notwithstanding this privileged background, he became a committed Labour Party supporter to the extent that he was lined up for a parliamentary seat at the 1959 general election, only to withdraw at the last minute. He did so largely because of his homosexuality at a time in British history when to be 'exposed' as gay would almost certainly end an individual's public career (and possibly worse). One of the strengths of Sheard's biography is that she is able to show how adept Abel-Smith was at keeping the various (and complex) parts of his life separate from each other. Few London School of Economics (LSE) professors, as Abel-Smith became, run clothes shops on Carnaby Street in London called 'Just Men'. Notwithstanding his ultimate rejection of a parliamentary candidacy, he continued to give advice and support to the Labour Party on a range of social policy issues and was...