Inkeles

ALEX INKELES

4 march 1920 . 9 july 2010

PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

VOL. 156, NO. 2, JUNE 2012

biographical memoirs
LEX INKELES received his Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in 1949. He spent most of his long and outstanding career as a professor at two of the world’s most distinguished universities, Harvard and Stanford. His research and theory hadthree main thrusts: (1) He made path-breaking contributions to our understanding of Soviet Russian society at a time when little was known about that subject and the “Cold War” was escalating. His books Public Opinion in Soviet Russia (1950), How the Soviet System Works (1956), The Soviet Citizen (1959), Soviet Society (1961), and Social Change in Soviet Russia (1968) influenced American foreignpolicy toward the USSR for decades; (2) He designed and led a very large project on the sociocultural aspects of development, which is a central focus of this memoir, leading to key books and articles that helped change recent world history; (3) He made profound theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding the interface between social systems and personality, demonstrating clearly theneed for interdisciplinary research and theory in the social sciences. More than fifty years ago, I asked to have Alex Inkeles assigned as my adviser when I was about to enter graduate school in the Department of Social Relations at Harvard University in 1960. I had asked for him because I knew of and admired his work on social stratification, which was an interest of mine then. My decision wasfortunate, because Alex became my mentor and helped me in many ways at the beginning of my career. When I had successfully completed all my coursework and my Ph.D. exams, I wanted to do fieldwork for my dissertation in England. Alex convinced me to do my fieldwork in Chile instead. He could be incredibly convincing! A cousin of mine had been an air force military attaché at the U.S. Embassy inSantiago. My cousin said Chile was a terrible place, and that I should forget the idea. He was a typical “Ugly American” and xenophobic. Alex presented a very different and friendlier view of Chile, on which he had done exploratory cultural research. He aroused my spirit of adventure, and pointed out that I could do my dissertation fieldwork anywhere, given my topic. He also offered me a researchassistantship on his new project, the Harvard University Project on the Sociocultural Aspects of Development (HUPSCAD; later the “Harvard-Stanford Project,” after he moved to Stanford University). So I went to Chile for all of 1963 with Alex and his family—his wife, Bernadette, and his daughter, Ann. When Alex and his family traveled around South America during our year there, Alex invited me along andhis project paid my expenses. That was a great kindness to me, and went far beyond what he had any
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obligation to do. He was a kind man, even though he seemed forbidding to many people because of his great intellect and wide knowledge. That trip whetted my appetite for foreign travel, and set me on the path of being a “world traveler.” I am up to seventy-sixcountries (for a half day or more) so far, and want to visit a hundred before I turn eighty in seven years. When we returned to Harvard in 1964, Alex made me associate director of his project. He also obtained for me the positions of research fellow at the Center for International Affairs and, later, of lecturer in the Department of Social Relations. He could have given me the lesser position of“assistant” project director, but instead he kindly made me “associate director.” I very much appreciated that. He needed to get me the research fellow post to pay me for my work, but getting me the lecturer position after my Ph.D. was completed was again a true kindness. Alex’s major theory was about personality and social structure; he sometimes called it “psycho-sociology.” He elaborated this...