Educated as a Cambridge historian, Oakeshott became interested in McTaggart, and his resulting philosophy blended elements of idealism with a scepticism derived from Montaigne and Hume, the mix in turn infused with the conservatism of Burke. He became professor of political philosophy at the London School of Economics in 1950. His political philosophy was anti-Utopian and anti-statist. The role of the State is not to introduce grand designs for society, but to preserve the opportunity for the different practices and experiences of living to flourish (a standpoint thought to have been realized by Britain’s Thatcher government of the 1980s). Books include Experience and its Modes (1933), Rationalism in Politics and other essays (1962), On Human Conduct (1975), and On History and other essays (1982) Oakeshott also co-authored with a friend, Guy Griffith, A Guide to the Classics—or how to pick the Derby winner (1936).