Interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith

Interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith edited by James Ronald Stanfield and Jacqueline Bloom Stanfield For over half a century, Canadian-born John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908) has been among the most visible of public intellectuals. His articulate, controversial, best-selling books-including The Affluent Society, Economics and the Public Purpose, and The New Industrial State-and his very partisan liberal Democrat political and public service activities secured a place for him among the rich and famous of his time. He worked as an adviser to President John F. Kennedy, served as U. S. Ambassador to India (1961-1963), and edited Fortune magazine during the mid-1940s. Among American economists of any era, he is rivaled only by Thorstein Veblen for the introduction of phrases that take on a life of their own in the literate idiom. Such Galbraithian concepts as "the conventional wisdom" and the "affluent society" have become familiar even beyond his remarkably wide readership. This collection of interviews documents the long career of an influential economist and political philosopher. Many of them are occasioned by publication of his books and contain their key themes. The interviews also indicate Galbraith's wide-ranging public service and his frequent hobnobbing with the political and intellectual elite. Through the collection, which spans over four decades, Galbraith's erudition, wit, and impassioned liberalism shine through, making this volume an essential companion to his works. James Ronald Stanfield is a professor of economics at Colorado State University. Jacqueline Bloom Stanfield is a professor of sociology at the University of Northern Colorado.