And out of that came a huge brouhaha he got himself involved in with the Economics Department. I said earlier how intellectually ruthless he could get. He really moved to the crux of the matter and he deliberately gave a very powerful critique of the whole project, which was the darling of Williams College, the darling of the president and the darling of the econ department. They would bring people here from underdeveloped countries and give them an education so they’d go back and they would become entrepreneurs and all of that. And he said, “What happens to the society there? What happened to their values? What happened to their way of life?” And he really raised some questions about that this whole rage for development may not be all that it’s pitched as. Because it was a very powerful critique it became a huge – there was a huge gathering of the entire college community in which Bob made a presentation.

John Resenbrink,
University of Chicago graduate school classmate and early Williams College faculty colleague