Walt Rostow: a Personal Appreciation

The subject of this essay is Walt Rostow himself: or more precisely Rostow’s development and achievements as an economic historian. A bio-bibliographical essay like this is bound to be highly personal: personal to the writer as well as to the subject. An attempt to put down on paper the story of Walt’s life and of his academic activities, while he himself is still alive and as active as ever, would daunt any writer. It should be all the more daunting to a writer linked to Walt, as I have been, by many years of companionship and friendship. What, nevertheless, justifies my enterprise and has eased some of its difficulties is my belief that our personal and academic proximity may have enabled me to evaluate Walt as an economic historian with an understanding better than one I could have gained from further afar.