A Life in Our Times: Memoirs

by John Kenneth Galbraith

The richly adventurous memoirs of one of the most dazzling public figures to dominate the American scene over the last decades
 
“As a raconteur and a literary stylist he stands with the best. . . . As entertainment, the book is a total success.” — The New York Times Book Review
 
“Absorbing and irresistible.” — The New Yorker
 
“A highly perceptive commentary on all our yesterdays . . . anecdotal, amusing, animated and above all, illuminating.” — John Barkham Reviews
 
“An enjoyable book, full of fun, full of wisdom, and full of rare insights into the history of our times.” — The New Republic
 
“A delightfully teeming book . . . [John Kenneth] Galbraith’s comic voice is a distinctive and durable literary achievement.” — Atlantic Monthly

Genres: Biography, Economics, Autobiography, Nonfiction, Politics, Business, History

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

John Kenneth Galbraith was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism and democratic socialism. His books on economic topics were bestsellers in the 1950s and 1960s. A prolific author, he produced four dozen books & over a 1000 articles on many subjects. Among his most famous works was his economics trilogy: American Capitalism (1952), The Affluent Society (1958) & The New Industrial State (1967). He taught at Harvard University for many years. He was active in politics, serving in the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson. He served as US Ambassador to India under John F. Kennedy.

He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom twice: one in 1946 from President Truman, and another in 2000 from President Clinton. He was also awarded the Order of Canada in 1997, and in 2001, the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, for strengthening ties between India and the USA.

Reviews

[Andrew Breslin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One thing that quickly becomes evident on reading A Life in Our Times is that John Kenneth Galbraith is enormously impressed with the accomplishments of John Kenneth Galbraith.

And you can’t really fault him for it. I’ve met plenty of people who are far more impressed with themselves than they have any right to be. Galbraith lived to be 97 years old. By the time he was one third of the way through his long life, he had already been a professor at Harvard and served as an economic adviser to Franklin Roosevelt during the worst economic crisis in history. He went on to serve in the Truman, Kennedy and Johnson administrations, by turns as an economist, speechwriter and diplomat. He published dozens of influential books and received dozens of honorary degrees from educational institutions around the world. He was also 6 foot 9, which shouldn’t count as an accomplishment, but is, nevertheless, quite impressive.

Galbraith’s economic ideas did not shake the foundations of the discipline and it’s unlikely he’ll ever have as much influence among economists as say, John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman, just to name two (specifically, two who would fight with one another if you put them in the same room, which I would pay to watch). His real genius was in conveying economic ideas, often very complex ones, in plain language that people without years of academic study could understand. He was, in my opinion, a great economist, but an even greater writer.

His memoirs were a delight to read. You might learn a tiny bit about economics. If you keep a piece of paper handy and write down some of the more obscure words he uses (and almost never just to show off . . . it always turns out to be the perfect word, not just one he pulled out to let everyone know that he’s smarter than we are, which he is), you’ll increase your vocabulary. You’ll definitely get some insight into the nature of national and international politics, and a new perspective on the events of the 20th century, including the Great Depression, WWII, and the turbulent 1960s. But mostly, you’ll just enjoy turning the pages.

Well done, Dr. Galbraith. I’m very impressed.

[George W. Hayduke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily the funniest set of memoirs by any historical figure not named Nikita Khrushchev. Galbraith, as per his reputation, is never bereft of wit. And the sheer span of his career is unparalleled: from a professor at Princeton/Harvard to FDR's price control director during WWII to India Ambassador during the Sino-Indian War to JFK's political advisor, the list goes on...all with fascinating anecdotes from each era. His description of Harvard students as "anti-intellectual, but not as single-mindedly so as those at Princeton" was rather entertaining.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Kenneth Galbraith has a lofty place in the pantheon of economists and in this memoir, he made sure you know it. The writing is characteristically erudite and his anecdotes are by turns amusing and/or validating, with some self-effacement thrown in for good measure (but this is a guy more likely to do the "humble brag" rather than the humble). As someone who is in the Keynesian camp
rather than the classical side, I appreciate the Galbraith's body of work and writing ability, seeing as how most economists writings are a cure for somnambulism as much as statements of position.
Galbraith reached out beyond economics to issues that are as vital today as they were when he wrote them. Take this example of immigration:
Migrants want to come; employers are eager to have them. The economic development to which they contribute is desirable. But instead there is the perversity if the present attitudes: the governments of receiving countries seek to prevent the influx, those of the supplying countries deplore the exodus."
That said, the memoir does not let the reader in to what truly drove Galbraith to embrace the system he espoused and who he was behind the public facade. For instance, Galbraith was raised on a farm in Canada, but there is no trace of the farm boy left in him as far as this book goes. No real idea how he was able to shrug off his country ways to, as folks in country music have said, "Get above his raisin."
Further, Galbraith lost a young son to leukemia, but he essentially says, "I don't want to talk about it. Let me talk instead of the summer trip we had after our son died."
And so on.
So yeah, this is a nice read, not heavy of econ theory, a triptych through Galbraith's life. But as such, it's light reading.

[Alex Tippett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beyond the discussion of economics that you might expect, Galbraith offers a fascinating account of post-war bureaucratic politics. He was involved in two of the largest bureaucratic struggles during that period: the implementation of New Deal economic policy and the debate over the Vietnam war. The book is filled with insights about the nature of the post-war bureaucracy and how priorities were advanced. One must imagine that his work on the corporate "technostructure"--the experts and expertise that are required to guide large corporations--was influenced by his experience with the analogous structures within the American state. Well written and consistently funny, though the pace sags a bit in the middle.

[Grindy Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Kenneth Galbraith is taller than you, has a better education, great social connections, and will take the time in his memoirs to remind you of one or more of the above roughly every 25 pages. He writes well enough but by no means is he Arthur Schlesinger, and he overestimates his net contribution to American society and government.

[David Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

My to-read list includes a number of titles by Galbraith. Somehow, I managed to pick up his memoirs before reading any of the others. Normally, I might view this as the incorrect sequence. In this case, however, it simply confirmed that a) Galbraith is worth reading and b) that the other books on the list are the ones I really should read.

I've read a number of memoirs of people whose voices are familiar to me. This sometimes leads me to read their books while mentally hearing their voices and cadences. Luckily, that wasn't the case here. My exposure to his voice was through his television series, The Age of Uncertainty. I think if I'd been reading using his voice, it would have taken me three or four times as long to read.

Galbraith was an intelligent and interesting person, who put together a career and life working with and getting to know other intelligent and interesting people. He tells us his story in an engaging and interesting way. This story is almost exclusively about his professional life: as a civil servant, professor, political campaign worker, ambassador, and author. We get almost nothing of his family, which is fine by me. He interests me because of what he's done, not who his spouse or children are, or how he spent his time off.

As is typical with memoirs, there are no notes or bibliography. There's an index, and I think exactly one map. It would have been nice to have a handful of photographs, but so it goes.

[Derrick Grose · Rating 4 out of 5]

When, as a high school student in the mid-seventies I read The New Industrial State it engaged me with economics with a clear vision of how the "free market" was yielding to "planning" as a controlling force in both capitalist and socialist economies. In his memoir Galbraith explains his belief that it should be possible to clearly explain economic theory and that good writing is important and was important in his career. That career took him from a "Scotch" family in rural southern Ontario, to the Ontario College of Agriculture and American Universities. From there he became involved in promoting liberal causes in the American Democratic Party starting during the Roosevelt Administration's "New Deal" and in price regulation during World War II, continuing into speech writing for J.F.K. and then serving as Ambassador to India and fighting against American entanglements in Vietnam. At the same time he migrated in and out of journalism and the academic world. He also published works of fiction and non-fiction. Even many years later, Galbraith's dry humour and ironic perspective on his own actions and those of others provide the reader with an entertaining view of what he calls, "Our times."

[Jarno Mehtiö · Rating 5 out of 5]

Näin kirjoitetaan muistelmat. Hauskat ja informatiiviset. Tuodaan esiin omia heikkouksia, mutta myös pätevyyksiä. Ja sama koskien muita ihmisiä. Sisältää sekä hauskoja kaskuja ja anekdootteja, mutta myös pätevää analyysiä esimerkiksi omasta tieteellisestä työstään ja talousteoriastaan. Lukija saa hyvät valmiudet mm. triologian American Capitalism, The Affluent Society, and The New Industrial Staten sisällöistä. Ja samalla herää kiinnostus tutkia toisen aikakauden liberaali-intellektuellin, Schlesinger, teoksia. Ja Harvardin proffaksi ryhtymistä. Voi kätevästi pitää virkavapaata vähintään joka toinen vuosi.

[Artie LeBlanc · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is worthy but dull.

It had been on my shelves for many years, unread. I have now waded through about a quarter of it, and I found the pace slow, the detail excessive, and the cast of many, many thousands unnecessary.

Three stars rather than two because it is a worthy book that details much material valuable to students of the period - but not, I'm afraid to me, as an interested lay reader.

Off to the second-hand shop with it..

[Richard Walden · Rating 5 out of 5]

The liberal conscience of Americans for the second half of the 20th century, Galbraith never hesitated to challenge 'the conventional wisdom'--a term he coined. Always entertaining, Galbraith didn't suffer fools gladly and let them know it. A throughly enjoyable read by a humane participant in public life, an economist who explained economics in prose intelligible to the layperson.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything Galbraith wrote after leaving agronomics is a delight to read except for his attempts as a novelist. This, one of his more complete memoirs, is no exception. There is much here, particularly as regards the CIA, not mentioned in earlier memoirs.

[Glenn Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating insight into politics of the 1950s and 1960s

[Conrad]

I have gotten far enough in this one to find out that Galbraith was born... Canadian!