The London School of Economics and Political Science -- the LSE -- is one of the most famous academic institutions in the world. This history provides a lively account of the fist century of a university which, form its beginnings has captured not only the minds of social scientists but also the imagination of a wider public. It is the biography of an institution written by an author who was closely involved as a student and later as Director of the School and who remains deeply attached to it. The book places the School in the context of the drama of the twentieth century and it does so through a mirror, the mirror of the social sciences.

Lord Dahrendorf traces the story of the LSE from its `invention' by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, and Graham Wallas as a breakfast in August 1894, through its foundation in 1895, the travails of its early years, the triumphs of the Beveridge years between the wars, the great expansion of the post-war period, and the changing moods of the succeeding decades, including the `troubles' of 1968. The individuals and the events of the LSE's century of existence have been memorable, yet the School has always been more than the sum of its parts. Its base was London, and its home the world.