Simon Clarke

Simon Clarke (26 March 1946 – 27 December 2022) was a British sociologist who specialised in social theory, political economy, labour relations, and the history of sociology. He had a particular interest in employment relations in China, Vietnam, and the former-Soviet nations. He was Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Life Simon Clarke was born in London, on 26 March 1946. His father, Tom Clarke was an English screenwriter. Clarke was educated at The Hall and Bryanston School. He studied economics at Clare College, Cambridge, graduating with a first class degree in 1967. After a year spent teaching economics in the Department of Political Economy at University College London, Clarke began studying for a PhD at the University of Essex under the supervision of Alasdair MacIntyre; his thesis was entitled The Structuralism of Claude Lévy-Strauss. In 1972 Clarke joined the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick where he remained until his retirement in 2009. He was head of the Russian Research Programme at Warwick and director of the Institute for Comparative Labour Relations in Moscow. Clarke died on 27 December 2022, at the age of 76.