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Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Foreword, by Frederick P. Keppel
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adviser to the Swedish Government, and a member of the Swedish Senate.
Dr. Myrdal had a decade earlier spent a year in the United States as a
Fellow of the Spelman Fund, and when the invitation was extended to
him by the Corporation in 1937, was about to make a second visit at the
invitation of Harvard University to deliver the Godkin Lectures.
It was understood that he should be free to appoint and organize a staff
of his own selection in the United States and that he should draw upon
the experience of other scholars and experts in less formal fashion, but
that the report as finally drawn up and presented to the public should
represent and portray his own decisions, alike in the selection of data and
in the conclusions as to their relative importance. Upon him rested the
responsibility, and to him should go the credit for what I for one believe
to be a remarkable accomplishment.
The difficulties of Dr. Myrdal’s task, which would have been great
enough in any event, were much increased by the outbreak of the present
war. At a critical point in the development of the enterprise, he returned
to Sweden to confer with his colleagues in the Government and the
University, and only after nine months was he enabled to return by a long and
circuitous route. Meanwhile, defense and war needs here had taken more
and more of the time and energies of his collaborators. Despite all these
difficulties, delays and complications, his task has now been completed and
is presented in these volumes. The Carnegie Corporation is under deep
and lasting obligation to Dr. Myrdal. The full degree of this obligation
will be appreciated only when the material he has gathered and interpreted
becomes generally known.
Though he has achieved an extraordinary mastery of the English
language, Dr. Myrdal is not writing in his mother tongue. As a result, there
is a freshness and often a piquancy in his choice of words and phrases which
is an element of strength. Here and there it may lead to the possibility of
misunderstanding of some word or some phrase. This is a risk that has
been deliberately taken. It would have been possible for some American
to edit the very life out of Dr. Myrdal’s manuscript in an effort to avoid
all possibility of offending the susceptibilities of his readers, but the result
would have been a less vital and a far less valuable document than it is
in its present form.
Thanks are also due to the Director’s many associates and advisers, and in
particular to Professor Samuel A. Stouffer and Dr. Richard Sterner, who
during Dr. Myrdal’s absence carried the burden of direction and decision,
and to Messrs. Shelby M. Harrison, William F. Ogburn and Donald R.
Young for their generously given editorial services in connection with the
publication of some of the research memoranda prepared by Dr. Myrdal’s
collaborators.
When the Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation asked for the preparation
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