At the time radical Abbie Hoffman committed suicide in April 1989 by taking an overdose of phenobarbital, Stephen J. Whitfield was in Grenoble, France completing a book on The Culture of the Cold War, which Johns Hopkins University Press is publishing this fall.

"My interest in Abbie Hoffman was spurred by the shocking and saddening news of his death," Mr. Whitfield writes. "He represented a conjunction of a number of my scholarly interests—in the fate of American radicalism, in the role of humor in public life, in the 1950's, and how the ambience of that decade came to disappear, and in the Jewish style in national politics. (My last article in VQR was on "The Jewish Vote" in the winter 1986 issue.)"

Though Hoffman was an alumnus of Brandeis University where Mr. Whitfield is Max Richter Professor of American Studies, he only saw the stunt man in action one time, "when he came to the campus for an amusing and fervent speech that urged the students to devote themselves to political activism. But he was clearly preaching to the uncommitted; and for all his effervescence, the years had taken their toll."