JK Galbraith’s foreword to the British edition of this novel is timeless. He wrote it in 1990 and it is as relevant now as it was thirty-two years ago; his style is faultless; not often a trait of an economist.
”It gives me much pleasure, indeed, that this small book is coming out in a British edition. Some will think it, perhaps, a trifle parochial – too socially associated with the American educational scene. I yearn to think this is not the case.
Harvard, I believe, as do my fellow professors, is an institution on the world scene. And there is ample evidence of this in the students, not to mention faculty, who assemble here from all over the world. Some of our social attitudes are, indeed, exceptional, but I presume to hope that my British readers will see these as an exercise in anthropology, to be viewed as one might view the tribal customs of, say, a Polynesian island recently brought to the public eye. The most peculiar of our Harvard (and American) ceremonies is that associated with academic tenure, which gives title to this book. With great formality we debate the question of whether a talented scholar and teacher should have a lifetime appointment, something that European universities accord as a matter of course.
What is, however, common to all the capitalist or, as I would prefer, the socially concerned democratic world is recurrent financial dementia, the product of mass euphoria verging at times on insanity. Not Italian banks extending into the Vatican, not France in the time of John Law and the Assignats*, not Britain during the South Sea Bubble and certainly not the United States, have been spared. It is this and its American recurrence every 20 years or less that my hero has discovered and by which he rewards himself so richly. The result is a cautionary tale for all countries.
But more than solemn warning is here in my purpose. I wrote this book in part for my own enjoyment, and I very much hope for the enjoyment of my readers. It is in this spirit that I offer it to my British friends.
JKG”
* An Assignat was a monetary instrument, an order to pay, used during the time of the French Revolution and the French Revolutionary Wars.
Is the cover illustrator Paul Cox, who also illustrated the folio edition Wodehouse?
You are observant and correct; illustration by Paul Cox and design by Sara Eisenman.
An obituary of Galbraith mentioned his writing practices, and quoted him as saying that the fifth draft was usually when he added those spontaneous touches the reviewers notice.
At Harvard they perhaps debate whether a talented scholar and teacher should get a lifetime appointment. In the sticks, tenure can have to do more with when someone was appointed–during periods of expansion, say 1945 – 1975, it was a good deal easier to get tenure.