Philip Slater (1927–2013) was the best-selling author of several books of sociology and social commentary advocating for democratic ideals. Slater received his PhD from Harvard and taught sociology at Harvard, Brandeis, and the University of California at Santa Cruz. He was professor and chairperson of the Brandeis Sociology Department in 1971 when he left academia to found Greenhouse, a personal growth center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Slater then transformed from critic to creator, becoming an actor, playwright, and novelist. He acted in over 30 plays and films, wrote more than 25 plays and novels, and taught writing and play-writing at UC Santa Cruz. He returned to academia in his 80s, teaching in the doctoral program in Transformative Studies at the California Institute for Integral Studies.
Todd Gitlin is professor of sociology at the University of California/Berkeley.