Sidney Verba, the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor emeritus of government at Harvard, died at home March 4, 2019, at the age of 86.
Verba graduated from Harvard in 1953. Enrolling in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, he earned an MPA in 1955 and a Ph.D. from the Department of Politics in 1959. He then was an assistant and associate professor at Princeton, and a full professor at Stanford and the University of Chicago, before returning to Harvard in 1973.
With Princeton professor Gabriel A. Almond, Verba co-authored The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (1963), which became a classic. Collaborating with others, he produced almost 20 other significant books on citizenship and political equality. Verba taught at Harvard for more than 30 years before retiring in 2007.
He also was the director of the Harvard University Library from 1984 to 2007. He directed the digital evolution of the library while still teaching. In his career he was chair of the Harvard University Press, president of the American Political Science Association, and chair of the human-rights committee of the National Academy of Sciences.
Verba is survived by his wife, Cynthia Winston; three daughters; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.