David E. Apter, Yale Political Scientist, Is Dead at 85
David E. Apter, a Yale professor who wove his expertise in political science and sociology into influential treatises on the often-tortured birth of developing nations, died Tuesday at his home in North Haven, Conn. He was 85.
The cause was complications of cancer, his daughter, Emily Apter, said.
In his 46-year academic career, Professor Apter wrote or helped write more than 20 books that drew on social science and political theory and his own forays into impoverished lands, where he encountered peasants, politicians and sometimes terrorists. In 1986, Professor Apter spent months in China interviewing survivors of the 1934-35 Long March, which brought Mao Zedong eventually to power. In “Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic” (Harvard, 1994), written with Tony Saich, Professor Apter told how Mao wrote his Little Red Book of political sayings while the marchers, sometimes living in caves, set up so-called “universities” so that they could digest Mao’s texts.
“The intensity of their indoctrination was remarkable, how they willingly surrendered personal discretion to gain collective power,” Professor Apter said in an interview in April.
In his travels, he interviewed colonial bureaucrats, nationalist leaders, generals, foot soldiers, tribal chiefs, trade unionists, farmers, fishermen and merchants in the bazaar.
“He was a tireless field worker, learning the fine grain of life out on the surfaces of the world where people actually live, and had a remarkable capacity to make broader theory out of it,” Kai T. Erikson, a former president of the American Sociological Association, said in an interview.
“It’s hard to pin him to the wall as a political scientist or a sociologist,” Professor Erikson said. “He had huge influence in both fields, bringing them together as an inventor of interdisciplinarity — almost the coiner of the term.”
Perhaps Professor Apter’s most influential work is “The Politics of Modernization” (University of Chicago, 1965), an analysis of the daunting development problems new nations face....
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The cause was complications of cancer, his daughter, Emily Apter, said.
In his 46-year academic career, Professor Apter wrote or helped write more than 20 books that drew on social science and political theory and his own forays into impoverished lands, where he encountered peasants, politicians and sometimes terrorists. In 1986, Professor Apter spent months in China interviewing survivors of the 1934-35 Long March, which brought Mao Zedong eventually to power. In “Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic” (Harvard, 1994), written with Tony Saich, Professor Apter told how Mao wrote his Little Red Book of political sayings while the marchers, sometimes living in caves, set up so-called “universities” so that they could digest Mao’s texts.
“The intensity of their indoctrination was remarkable, how they willingly surrendered personal discretion to gain collective power,” Professor Apter said in an interview in April.
In his travels, he interviewed colonial bureaucrats, nationalist leaders, generals, foot soldiers, tribal chiefs, trade unionists, farmers, fishermen and merchants in the bazaar.
“He was a tireless field worker, learning the fine grain of life out on the surfaces of the world where people actually live, and had a remarkable capacity to make broader theory out of it,” Kai T. Erikson, a former president of the American Sociological Association, said in an interview.
“It’s hard to pin him to the wall as a political scientist or a sociologist,” Professor Erikson said. “He had huge influence in both fields, bringing them together as an inventor of interdisciplinarity — almost the coiner of the term.”
Perhaps Professor Apter’s most influential work is “The Politics of Modernization” (University of Chicago, 1965), an analysis of the daunting development problems new nations face....