The Private Roots of Public Action

Sidney Verba was born in Brooklyn, New York on May 26, 1932. He received a bachelor's degree in history and literature from Harvard University and a master's degree and doctorate in politics from Princeton University. He was an assistant and associate professor at Princeton and a full professor at Stanford University and the University of Chicago before returning to Harvard in 1973. He taught at Harvard for more than 30 years before retiring in 2007. He was also the director of the Harvard University Library from 1984 to 2007.

He co-wrote several books including The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations written with Gabriel A. Almond; The Changing American Voter written with Norman Nie and John Petrocik; Participation and Political Equality: A Seven Nation Comparison written with Norman Nie and Jae-on Kim; Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research written with Gary King and Robert Keohane; and Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Democracy written with Kay Lehman Schlozman and Henry E. Brady. Verba died on March 4, 2019 at the age of 86.

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