On the passing of Professor Evans

Here is the obituary in the Washington Post of Professor Robert Henry Evans, former chairman of what was the Department of Government and Foreign Affairs when I was an undergraduate at the University of Virginia. In those days, I think one of the requirements for a government degree was a "comparative government" course, and so I had a semester listening to Professor Evans hold forth on the state of democracy as he saw it in England, France, Italy, and Germany. In particular, I recollect his description of "the French peasant" as a factor in elections there - "the one with the beret and the B.O.," he said.

The obituary has an interesting typo, suggesting that Professor Evans was associated with the "Nitzke" school of international relations, which suggests something in between the well-known diplomatists Paul Nitze and Ray Nitschke.