Joseph LaPalombara
Sidney Verba made a difference in my own life for many reasons. He was arguably the strongest member of the SSRC Committee on Comparative Politics, of which I was happy to be a member. To place Sidney at the level says a great deal, given who were its other members. There was also the astonishing supply of apt and sometimes hilarious stories Sidney could tell. He was, I think, unique in sensing exactly when one of those tales, or one of those quips, was needed, or would make a difference.
Recalling specifics about this extraordinary friend, here are two instances that come to mind. Years ago, I was talking with Sidney about a task he had undertaken as the head of the library system at Harvard. Sid discussed books, book publishing, what happens to books that are printed on various types of paper, what printing was like during the war years, how vulnerable books might become, and what Harvard was then doing to overcome the problems implied. I listened, and I learned from this political scientist turned expert librarian. About a week later, in New Haven, I went to the Sterling Library to pull from the stacks one volume, in Italian, published in Italy shortly after WWII. When I extracted it from the shelf, it almost literally turned to ashes. I remember then urging our librarian to get in touch with Sidney.
Years earlier, at CASBS in California, I was chatting with Sidney who was then busy coding data he and Gay Almond had gathered for their famous comparative empirical study. Sidney mentioned the surprising number of Italian respondents who seemed to respond surprisingly to the query as to what they might do if they were given additional hours of "time to rest." What fascinated him were Italian responses that mentioned going to the mountains or the beaches, engaging in one or another kind of frenetic and/or enervating activity, and then he said to me, something like, "So I think what we have here is an Italian definition of what is meant by ‘rest’ is to be ‘in reposo.’ Rest for Italians must be anything and everything a person may be doing when he or she is not working." He was quick and accurate in that way—and, basically, about everything. I will miss that.
