Allan Silver was Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Columbia University. He received his Ph.D., M.A., and B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1963, 1961, and 1954, respectively. He began teaching at Columbia in 1964, and has also taught at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), Meijing University (Tokyo), the Institute for Advanced Study, the Hebrew University, and the University of Wisconsin. His research interests included transformations of war and citizenship in the United States (supported by a grant from Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation); trust and friendship in pre-modern and modern societies and their implications for social theory; and political sociology of the Hebrew bible. In addition to authoring numerous publications, Professor Silver had chaired the Council for European Studies, served as Governing Board and Fellowship Selection Committee Member of the Society of Fellows in the Humanities, Columbia University, as Consulting Editor of the American Journal of Sociology, and as a member of the Committee on Western Europe, Social Science Research Council.