This Journal: Early Days

• Published in: Government and opposition (London) Vol. 32; no. 2; pp. 161 - 171
• Main Author: Crick, Bernard
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01-04-1997; Government and Opposition with the assistance of the London School of Economics and Political Science; Blackwell Publishing Ltd; London School of Economics and Political Science
• Subjects: Academic journals; Academic libraries; Comparative politics; Conservatism; Memory; Pluralist school; Political opposition; Political science; Resignation from office; Scholarly publishing
• ISSN: 0017-257X; 1477-7053
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-7053.1997.tb00155.x

THE NEW EDITOR HAS ASKED ME ‘TO WRITE THE KEY ARTICLE ON THE foundation and achievements of Government and Opposition itself’, others to write on aspects of Ghiţa Ionescu's life and work, just as John Pinder has already written such an excellent comprehensive account. I said that that was too tall an order, to sit down and read again, or look over, thirty-one years of it and all those associated books and pamphlets. But Geraint Parry twisted my arm, much as Ionescu used to do, most flatteringly, telling me that ‘the Board felt unanimously that you would be the ideal [sic] person since you were one of the journal's founders’. Even so, all I said I could do would be an essay, mostly from memory, an essai to catch the motives, atmosphere and context of that time, half a life-time ago at the height of the cold war. And as an erstwhile biographer, I know the unreliability of memory.