@ HOPE 2008 - Solow on Solow

They say the record speaks. Here it speaks literally, since Bob Solow, the subject of this meeting, is more alive, mentally quicker, sharper in wit, and more determined than most of the attendees. It is a bit awkward to interpret the man when he is looking from across the table. Solow does not know it, but he exposes how much of our writing, and historical standpoint, is the reconstruction of motives and reenactments. More than one paper has talked about crime stories, finding who did the model and why, stolen work, predecessors, and the like, and the master criminal is there to defend himself.