By the 1960s, while union activists maintained their hostile attitude, scholars wrote with more appreciation of his challenges and successes. Finally in 1977 he received a long scholarly biography that historians have judged to be "definitive." Labour MP David Marquand, a trained historian who later became a professor of politics, wrote "Ramsay MacDonald" with the stated intention of giving MacDonald his due for his work in founding and building the Labour Party, and in trying to preserve peace in the years between the two world wars. He argued also to place MacDonald's fateful decision in 1931 in the context of the crisis of the times and the limited choices open to him. Marquand praised the prime minister's decision to place national interests before that of party in 1931. He also emphasised MacDonald's lasting intellectual contribution to socialism and his pivotal role in transforming Labour from an outside protest group to an inside party of government.