Mesothelioma claims life of international political scholar

    Peter Gowan, a renowned and influential scholar of the political left, has died of mesothelioma at age 63. It is believed he was exposed to the asbestos that caused his cancer early in his career, as a teacher working in London's public schools. Gowan was a professor of international relations at London Metropolitan University and a member of the board of the New Left Review (NLR). In the late 1970s he co-founded the journal Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, which supported opposition movements to the Soviet regime such as Solidarity in Poland. He also produced a documentary archive of the struggle for democratic rights in Eastern Bloc countries during that time. He is the author of The Global Gamble, an analysis of Wall Street and the effect of the U.S. dollar, published in 1999. He spoke internationally on the topic of the weaknesses of the new capitalist model. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma just weeks after the onset of the international financial crisis last fall. Despite his poor prognosis he continued to work, publishing an article in the January-February issue of the New Left Review about his view of the origins of the economic crisis.