William Letwin (14 December 1922 – 20 February 2013) was an American academic who ended his career as Professor of Political Science at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

. Letwin was born and raised in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, the son of Bessie (Rosenthal) and Lazar Letwin. His parents were Jewish emigrants from

Mohyliv-Podilskyi Mohyliv-Podilskyi (, , , ) is a city in the Mohyliv-Podilskyi Raion of the Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine. Administratively, Mohyliv-Podilskyi is incorporated as a town of regional significance. It also serves as the administrative center of Mohyliv- ...

, Ukraine. He was raised living above his father's shop, and gained entry to the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

under a plan to benefit the brightest students from poorer schools. He graduated BA in 1943, and joined the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

, seeing

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

active service in the Pacific as an intelligence officer on the staff of

Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was C ...

. In 1944, while on leave, he married a fellow Chicago student, Shirley Robin Letwin (1924–1993). Leaving the U.S. Army in 1946, Letwin returned to Chicago as a graduate student, then in 1948 transferred to the London School of Economics for two years with the benefit of a

Fulbright scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. Graduating PhD from Chicago in 1951, he was a post-doctoral fellow in the Economics Department at Chicago from 1951 to 1952, then a research associate in its law school, 1953–1955. He was then appointed as an assistant professor of industrial history at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, and in 1960 became an associate professor of Economic History there. In 1966 he returned to the LSE as a reader in political science and was promoted to professor in 1977, going on to chair the political science department."Professor William Letwin"
obituary in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' dated 4 March 2013 According to an obituary in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', Letwin "played a key role in promulgating the free-market economics of the Thatcher era". As well as many works on economics, Letwin published a biography of the merchant and politician

Sir Josiah Child Sir Josiah Child, 1st Baronet, , (c. 1630/31 – 22 June 1699) was an English economist, merchant and politician. He was an economist proponent of mercantilism and governor of the East India Company. He led the company in the Anglo-Mughal War. ...

.Philip J. Stern, ''The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India'' (Oxford University Press), p. 233, note 36 He was the father of the British politician

Oliver Letwin Sir Oliver Letwin (born 19 May 1956) is a British politician, Member of Parliament (MP) for West Dorset from 1997 to 2019. Letwin was elected as a member of the Conservative Party, but sat as an independent after having the whip removed in Sep ...

Selected publications

*''Sir Josiah Child, Merchant Economist: With a Reprint of Brief Observations Concerning Trade, and Interest of Money (1668)'' (Cambridge, Mass: Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, 1959) *''A Documentary History of American Economic Policy Since 1789'' (Aldine, 1962) *''Law and Economic Policy in America: the Evolution of the Sherman Antitrust Act'' (University of Chicago Press, 1965, new edition 1981) *''On the Study of Public Policy'' (London School of Economics and Political Science, 1979) *''The Origins of Scientific Economics'' *''Against Equality: readings on economic and social policy'' (1983)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Letwin, William 1922 births 2013 deaths People from Chicago Writers from London Military personnel from Milwaukee University of Chicago alumni Alumni of the London School of Economics Jewish American writers Writers from Chicago Writers from Milwaukee United States Army personnel of World War II American expatriates in the United Kingdom 21st-century American Jews