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Baran (Paul Alexander) Papers
SC1234
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Paul Alexander Baran papers
creator:
Baran, Paul A.
Identifier/Call Number: SC1234
Physical Description:
9 Linear Feet
Date (inclusive): 1928-1964
Physical Location: Special Collections and University Archives materials are stored offsite and must be paged 36-48 hours in advance. For more
information on paging collections, see the department's website:
http://library.stanford.edu/spc .
Abstract: Correspondence, writings and audio recordings of Paul A. Baran.
The materials are open for research use.
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[identification of item], Paul Alexander Baran Papers (SC1234). Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Paul Alexander Baran was a professor of economics at Stanford from 1949 until his death of a heart attack in 1964. His most
important works were
The Political Economy of Growth (1957), and
Monopoly Capital (1965), co-authored with Paul M. Sweezy. Paul Baran was an expert in comparative economic systems (capitalism and socialism),
and considered himself a Marxist.
Born in Nikolaev, Russia, in 1909, Baran received his education in Germany, obtaining a Ph. D. in economics from the University
of Berlin in 1931. Having to leave Germany with the rise of Hitler, Baran spent a brief time in the Soviet Union, and then
some years in France, Poland, and Britain, working for his family's timber business. He then emigrated to the United States
in 1938, and served in the U.S. Army during the second world war as an expert on Russian and German economics. After the war,
Baran worked as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank, and after being invited to Stanford as a visiting lecturer in the
summer of 1948, was hired as an associate professor, and granted tenure in 1951. Baran became quite a controversial figure
at Stanford after expressing his support for the Cuban Revolution in 1959. He remained one of the economics department's most
popular professors until his death in 1964.
| 1909-08-25 | Paul Alexander Baran (PAB) is born in Nikolaev, Ukraine. On all official documents, PAB's birthday is the above date, but he maintained that this was an error, and that his real birthday was December 8, 1910, which is the date he and his family celebrated. |
| 1926 | Baran graduates from German Gymnasium in Dresden, to where he had moved with his parents in 1921, and returns to USSR, where he enrolls in the Plekhanov (Karl Marx) Institute of Economics at the University of Moscow. |
| 1928-1932 | Baran returns to Germany, completes his graduate studies in Berlin, Breslau, and Frankfurt's Institute for Social Research, writes for Rudolf Hilferding's "Die Gesellschaft" under the pen name "Alexander Gabriel." Earns Diplom Volkswirt (Master's Degree in Political Economy) and Dr. Phil. from Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. |
| 1934-1935 | Baran returns to USSR to visit his parents, but after several months, leaves for Vilna, Poland, where he has relatives, due to political situation in USSR. |
| 1935-1938 | Baran works for his uncles' timber business in Vilna, and eventually moves to London as the company's representative. |
| 1939 | Baran moves to the U.S., with the intention of pursuing an academic career in economics, as Germany occupies Poland. Meets Paul Sweezy in Cambridge. Enrolls at Harvard as graduate student in economics. |
| 1941 | Baran receives an M.A. in economics from Harvard. He had obtained a Ph.D. (Dr. Phil.) at the University of Berlin, but felt he needed to update and augment both his education and his credentials with a degree from Harvard. |
| 1941-1942 | Baran accepts research fellowship working on problems of price controls at the Brookings Institution. |
| 1942-1945 | After working briefly at the Office of Price Administration, Baran joins the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), working under E.S. Mason, and is drafted into the Army and reassigned to the OSS. His final rank was Technical Sergeant. |
| 1945 | PAB works for the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) under direction of J.K. Galbraith. (For an entertaining account of PAB's stint with the USSBS while on assignment in Germany, see J.K. Galbraith's memoir, A Life in Our Times, 1981.) |
| 1946-1949 | Baran works briefly at Department of Commerce and then about 3 years at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. First saved letters of correspondence between PMS and PAB are from 1949 when he lived in New York. |
| 1949 | After having taught a seminar during summer quarter at Stanford as a visiting scholar in 1948, Stanford hires Baran as an associate professor |
| 1951 | Stanford promotes Baran to full professor with tenure. |
| 1952 | "National Economic Planning" published (see bibliography) |
| 1953 | Baran spends fall semester at Oxford University, where he delivered a series of lectures forming the basis of his book, Political Economy of Growth. |
| 1955 | Baran is visiting scholar at the Indian Institute of Statistics in Calcutta. |
| 1957 | Political Economy of Growth is published. |
| 1960 | Baran travels to Cuba with Paul M. Sweezy and Leo Huberman. Suffers heart attack in December, 1960. |
| 1962 | Baran makes major trip to Europe, the Soviet Union and Iran. |
| 1963 | Baran travels to Latin America, with lectures in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil |
| 1964-03-27 | Baran dies of massive heart attack while visiting his friend Leo Lowenthal for dinner in San Francisco. |
| 1964-04 | Monopoly Capital is published. |
The materials consist of correspondence, writings and audio recordings of Paul A. Baran.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Economics -- Study and teaching.
Economics -- United States -- Studying and Teaching.
Philosophy, Marxist.
Economics
Marxism
Sweezy, Paul M. (Paul Marlor)
Baran, Paul A.
Thompson, Elsa Knight
Landau, Saul
Marcuse, Herbert
Brody, Richard A.