Doug
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The Contradictions of a Contrarian: Andre Gunder Frank
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by Jeff Sommers
April 25, 2005
Among academic activists I know the two names most frequently cited for inspiring us to pursue our work are Noam Chomsky and Andre Gunder Frank. Yesterday we lost one of them in Andre Gunder Frank. Gunder must have put, literally, thousands on that path, who in turn reached perhaps millions of students in some fashion.
He was released from a decade long battle with several cancers on April 23, 2005 where in a weakened state he succumbed to pneumonia. Complicating matters were potent infections acquired in hospitals in the attempt to beat back his cancers. Indeed, Gunder's life, like most, yet more than most, was characterized by struggle.
Gunder struggled in childhood, with an absentee, yet successful, father, who Gunder both missed and admired. Fleeing the persecution of leftists and Jews, of which Gunder's father was both, the family fled to Switzerland. His father went to California and sent for the family later, Gunder imagined him to have been suffering in poverty there, only to find a celebrity of Hollywood screenwriter of sorts in a convertible. Gunder suffered from loneliness, complicated by biochemically rooted psychological issues that challenged him throughout his life. Conversely, he was handsome as a young man and could be, in a sincere way, charming and disarming. Gunder was indeed always full of contradictions.
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