My father, Simon Clarke, who has died aged 76, was a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Warwick, whose research interests ranged from the origins of modern sociology to conditions in post-Soviet Russia.
Born in London to Tom Clarke, a screenwriter, and Diana (nee Gordon), a teacher of English as a foreign language, Simon’s childhood was peripatetic, with his father’s career taking them as far as Australia. When the family returned to Britain, Simon attended The Hall school in Hampstead, then Bryanston school in Dorset, and eventually Clare College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA in economics in 1967. Dissatisfied with the narrow boundaries of economics, Simon moved to the University of Essex to work on a PhD in sociology.
