Universities and the Search for Truth: The Unanticipated Education of an Idealist

Born long ago, in a place far away (Brooklyn), Paul Marantz went off to university to study physics but wound up specializing in Soviet politics and the Cold War. He arrived at UBC for what he assumed would be a short stay, but remained here for his entire career. Along the way, he came to appreciate the importance of collegiality, civility and mutual respect, shed some comforting illusions, learned much about the challenges of engaging in the fair-minded weighing of evidence, and witnessed the entirely unexpected demise of the Soviet Union and cessation of the Cold War. Over the years, academic fashions changed, and earlier ideas about truth and free speech are now widely contested.