The Clare Market Review (CMR) was established in 1905 and is the oldest student-run journal in the UK. It is based at the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 and published by the university's Students' Union

Students' union

A students' union, student government, student senate, students' association, guild of students or government of student body is a student organization present in many colleges and universities, and has started appearing in some high schools...

.

Notable contributors

Throughout its early years Beatrice

Beatrice Webb

Martha Beatrice Webb, Lady Passfield was an English sociologist, economist, socialist and social reformer. Although her husband became Baron Passfield in 1929, she refused to be known as Lady Passfield...

 and Sidney Webb, Fabian

Fabian

-People:*Fabian Månsson, , Swedish socialist*Fabian , , 1950s American teen idol and singer*Fabian Bachrach, an American photographer*Fabian Cancellara, , Swiss professional road cyclist...

 founders of the LSE and the New Statesman

New Statesman

New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

 magazine, maintained a close writing relationship with the CMR, publishing many articles and essays, some of which later formed the backbone of their influential ten volume study, English Local Government. Playwright and fellow Fabian George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 contributed arts reviews. Marxist

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 historian Ralph Miliband

Ralph Miliband

Ralph Miliband , born Adolphe Miliband, was a Belgian-born British sociologist known as a prominent Marxist thinker...

 had numerous essays published and William Beveridge

William Beveridge

William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge KCB was a British economist and social reformer. He is best known for his 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services which served as the basis for the post-World War II welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.Lord...

 developed his notions of taxation in the journal's pages. In 1966 Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

 contributed a fierce polemic on the Vietnam war, entitled An Appeal to the American Conscience. Other contributors include the political and economic theorist Harold Laski

Harold Laski

Harold Joseph Laski was a British Marxist, political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party during 1945-1946, and was a professor at the LSE from 1926 to 1950....

, post-Keynsian economist Joan Robinson

Joan Robinson

Joan Violet Robinson FBA was a post-Keynesian economist who was well known for her knowledge of monetary economics and wide-ranging contributions to economic theory...

, Prime Minister of South Africa and soldier Jan Smuts

Jan Smuts

Jan Christiaan Smuts, OM, CH, ED, KC, FRS, PC was a prominent South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various cabinet posts, he served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948...

, Liberal politician and peer David Steel

David Steel

David Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood, KT, KBE, PC is a British Liberal Democrat politician who served as the Leader of the Liberal Party from 1976 until its merger with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats...

, the noted anthropologist Edmund Leach

Edmund Leach

Sir Edmund Ronald Leach was a British social anthropologist of whom it has been said:"It is no exaggeration to say that in sheer versatility, originality, and range of writing he was and still is difficult to match among the anthropologists of the English speaking world".-Personal and academic...

, the humourist Alan Coren

Alan Coren

Alan Coren was an English humorist, writer and satirist who was well known as a regular panellist on the BBC radio quiz The News Quiz and a team captain on BBC television's Call My Bluff...

, the comedian and writer Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan

Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...

, the critic Bernard Matthews

Bernard Matthews

Bernard Matthews Farms Ltd is a British farming and food products business, which specialises in the farming of turkeys. Founded by Bernard Matthews in 1950, as Bernard Matthews Foods Ltd, the company is headquartered in Norwich, Norfolk, England, and has 56 farms throughout Norfolk, Suffolk and...

, Roger McGough

Roger McGough

Roger Joseph McGough CBE is a well-known English performance poet. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please and records voice-overs for commercials, as well as performing his own poetry regularly...

, Bernard Levin

Bernard Levin

Henry Bernard Levin CBE was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics,...

, the music theorist and pop musician Brian Eno

Brian Eno

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

, and the Liverpudlian Beat Poets Brian Patten

Brian Patten

-Background:Born near Liverpool's docks, he attended Sefton Park School in the Smithdown Road area of Liverpool, where he was noted for his essays and greatly encouraged in his work by Harry Sutcliffe his form teacher. He left school at fifteen and began work for The Bootle Times writing a column...

 and Jamie Carragher

Jamie Carragher

James Lee Duncan "Jamie" Carragher is an English footballer who plays as a defender for Premier League side Liverpool...

.

History

From 1905 to 1973 the review provided LSE students with an opportunity to voice their opinions free from the constraints and circumscriptions of university academia. In the summer term of 1972, editor John Stathatos

John Stathatos

John Stathatos , Greek photographer and writer. Based in London, 1970s-1990s, where he studied at the London School of Economics and was Executive Editor of the student newspaper, The Beaver as well as Editor of two issues of Clare Market Review...

 summarised its objectives as follows:

"Its format and content changes to reflect the attitudes of its editors and the vicissitudes of the students’ union which publishes it... Clare Market’s strength has derived from its lack of insularity and determined freedom of control from both its publishers and the school which stands behind it."

However, financial difficulty and general decline in interest led to a publishing hiatus from 1973 to 2008. In the Michaelmas term of 1973, the then editor captured the mood of imminent demise:

"Clare Market Review disappeared into the darkness of the Students’ Union for one session; and its only now struggling with the pangs of rebirth. Like any student publication it is hopelessly understaffed - this is a plea for its existence."

Throughout its existence, the CMR has varied enormously in content and tone, sometimes covering avery wide spectrum of subject matter, from literary reviews to analysis of the world’s financial markets, and at other times focussing solely on poetry and the arts. Alongside variations in the subject matter, it would appear that the early days of the publication also saw variations in legibility - a 1907 edition of The Economic Journal was pithy in its appraisal:

"It is not easy to find room for improvement in the Clare Market Review, and all may not concur in our wish that the chronicle and reviews were as legible as they are readable, that the character of multum in parvo, which distinguishes the style, had not been made so literally true by the use of type which requires the "microscopic eye" denied to man."

The Clare Market Review has a reputation of being an affectation for those who have been involved with it: in honour of his time spent writing for the CMR and The Beaver

The Beaver

The Beaver is the weekly newspaper of the London School of Economics Students' Union at the LSE.Despite being published by the Students' Union, The Beaver is independent in its reporting....

, Bernard Levin's name has recently been put to a journalism award run jointly by the LSE and The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

. Karl Popper

Karl Popper

Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...

 even had a copy of CMR amongst his personal papers. Beyond simple affection the Clare Market Reviews academic presence remains undiminished and the journal continues to be cited in numerous academic works.

Present

With renewed backing from the Students' Union, a group of students re-launched the journal in November 2008. A web edition is published simultaneously, expanding the content possibilities for the CMR beyond the written word. Looking to take influence from previous incarnations of the Review, their stated aim is to "break down the boundaries between academic and thinker, explore critical notions of studenthood, and in the process construct a collective existence for student thought at the LSE and beyond". The relaunch issue (Volume CIV, Issue 1) included contributions from, amongst others, Norman Birnbaum

Norman Birnbaum

Norman Birnbaum is an American sociologist. He is an emeritus professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and a member of the editorial board of The Nation. He was educated in New York City's public schools, at Williams College, and has a doctorate in sociology from Harvard University...

, Roger McGough

Roger McGough

Roger Joseph McGough CBE is a well-known English performance poet. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please and records voice-overs for commercials, as well as performing his own poetry regularly...

, and Brian Patten

Brian Patten

-Background:Born near Liverpool's docks, he attended Sefton Park School in the Smithdown Road area of Liverpool, where he was noted for his essays and greatly encouraged in his work by Harry Sutcliffe his form teacher. He left school at fifteen and began work for The Bootle Times writing a column...

.