Alexander Nove,

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

, FBA (born Aleksandr Yakovlevich Novakovsky; ; also published under Alec Nove; 24 November 1915 – 15 May 1994), a non-

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

, was

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of Economics at the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

and a noted authority on

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and

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

economic history Economic history is the study of history using methodological tools from economics or with a special attention to economic phenomena. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the Applied economics ...

. According to Ian D. Thatcher, " e consensus is that he was one of the most significant scholars of 'Soviet' studies in its widest sense and beyond."

Life and career

Alexander Nove was born in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

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, the son of Jacob Novakovsky. His father was a Menshevik who emigrated with his family in 1924 to Britain. He was educated at King Alfred School in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and received a BSc in economics from the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

in 1936. The school later made him an Honorary Fellow in 1982. Nove served in the Royal Signal Corps from 1939 but was transferred to Military Intelligence until 1946, reaching the rank of Major. From 1947 to 1958, he worked in the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

, mainly at the

Board of Trade The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for Business and Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...

. He was a Reader in Russian Social and Economic Studies at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

from 1958 to 1963 and Professor of Economics at the

from 1963 to 1982. He was then

Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow until his death. In 1982, Nove was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His proposers were William Hugh Clifford Frend, Sydney Checkland, Thomas Wilson, George Wyllie, Sir Kenneth Alexander and Leslie Alcock.

Personal life and death

In 1951, Nove married Irene MacPherson, his second marriage. They had three sons: Perry and David, from his first marriage. Together, they had Charles Nove (born 1960), a broadcaster. Nove died in Voss, Norway, on 15 May 1994.

Publications

* ''The Soviet Economy'' (1961) * (with J. A. Newth) ''The Soviet Middle East'' (1965) * ''Was Stalin Really Necessary?'' (1965) * (ed. with D. M. Nuti) ''Socialist Economics'' (1972) * ''Efficiency Criteria for Nationalised Industries'' (1973) * ''Stalinism and After'' (1976) * ''The Soviet Economic System'' (1977, 3rd edn 1986) * ''Political Economy and Soviet Socialism'' (1979) * ''The Economics of Feasible Socialism'' (1983) * ''Socialism, Economics and Development'' (1986) * ''Glasnost in Action'' (1989) * ''Economics of Feasible Socialism Revisited'' (1991) * ''Studies in Economics and Russia'' (1991) *
An Economic History of the USSR: 1917-1991
' (London, Penguin, third edition 1992) * (ed.) ''The Stalin Phenomenon'' (1993)

References

Sources

* * ''

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'' * 1915 births 1994 deaths Academics of the University of Glasgow Academics of the University of London Alumni of the London School of Economics British economists Civil servants in the Board of Trade Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of the British Academy Jewish historians Jewish British scientists Russian Jews Historians of Russia 20th-century British historians British Army personnel of World War II Royal Corps of Signals officers Soviet emigrants to the United Kingdom Socialist economists {{UK-historian-stub