Zuzanna Shonfield, born Zuzanna Maria Przeworska, (31 January 1919,

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

– 1 February 2000,

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality *Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record *Greater (song), "Greate ...

) was a Polish-born British writer and historian. She is best known as the author of the book ''The Precariously Privileged'' (1987) as well as the editor of her husband’s,

Andrew Shonfield Sir Andrew Akiba Shonfield (10 August 1917 – 23 January 1981) was a British economist best known for writing ''Modern Capitalism'' (1966), a book that documented the rise of long-term planning in postwar Europe. Shonfield's argument that plann ...

, works ''The Use of Public Power'' (1982) and ''In Defence of the Mixed Economy'' (1984).

Life

Zuzanna Przeworska was born in Warsaw on 31 January 1919 in a Jewish-Catholic family. She was educated by governesses until the age of 12, and then studied in a progressive school. At the age of 16, she went to Roedean girl’s public school in Sussex. In 1938, she entered

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

in Oxford where she studied French and German. Soon she got interest in politics, philosophy and economics and joined the

Communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

. In 1942, Przeworska married the economist Sir Andrew Shonfield, whom she assisted in writing his books. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter. After her husband’s death in 1981, Shonfield edited and published his uncompleted works ''The Use of Public Power'' (1982) and ''In Defence of the Mixed Economy'' (1984). It is known, that she completed the last section of the book and a table on similarities and differences of the two major oil crises. In 1987, Shonfield published her book ''The Precariously Privileged'' where she reconstructs the life of the Marshall family and charts the trials and fortunes, both comic and poignant, which befell these precariously privileged newcomers to London society. Zuzanna Shonfield died on 1 February 2000 in Greater London.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shonfield, Zuzanna 1919 births 2000 deaths 20th-century English women writers English people of Polish-Jewish descent English women non-fiction writers English economics writers 20th-century English historians British women historians Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom