John Kenneth Galbraith

(1908 - 2006)

One of America’s foremost economists, John Kenneth Galbraith wrote The Affluent Society, which is said to have influenced the Great Society programs and in which he argued, “Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding.” Galbraith published more than forty books, among them three novels, that have sold over seven million copies, making him the twentieth century’s most widely read economist. He taught at Harvard University on and off from 1934 until 1974 and advised or worked under the administrations of Democratic presidents ranging from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. Twice awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he told his doctors shortly before his death, “You’re the finest medical team in what was formerly known as the free world.”