Contributor(s): Professor Michael Cox | Founded by Fabian socialists in the 1890s and attracting such radical figures as Harold Laski, R.H. Tawney and Ralph Miliband, it is hardly surprising that the LSE has acquired a ‘red’ reputation over the years: a reputation that only seemed to be confirmed during the second half of the 1960s when the School was forced to close down because of student protest. But just how radical has the LSE ever been? Has it ever been a hot bed of revolution as critics have claimed? And how true is it of the LSE today? Michael Cox is Professor of International Relations at the LSE and Director of LSE IDEAS. Robin Archer is Director of the Ralph Miliband Programme at LSE. The Ralph Miliband Programme (@rmilibandlse) is one of LSE's most prestigious lecture series and seeks to advance Ralph Miliband's spirit of free social inquiry. The next lecture in the “Progress and its Discontents” series will be taking place on Thursday 3 December with Professor Wendy Carlin What Should We Study When We Study Economics?