It would have been nice to have been able to write this book with the
style of Mailer, the wit of Shaw, the breadth of Myrdal and the zeal of
Nader. It would also have been miraculous. Rest assured there are no
miracles here. On the contrary, the work in your hands undoubtedly bears
all the marks of imperfect human design. It's too long for one book, but
probably too short for the story to be told. It's not the sort of book
one can hope to fmish, even in five volumes. There is always one more
table one might squeeze in, one more column or row, an illustrative
chart or figure, another important refer- ence to check, something
dangling here or there that nags one to fiddle with it, wrap it up, tie
it down, and so on. All one can do, I think, is put up with the nagging
and press on. I can't imagine anyone making so many factual claims and
evaluative judgments, and putting together so many numbers in so many
different areas without making dozens of mistakes. I can't imagine
anyone working with national statistics and not having plenty of
mistakes made for him. As I look back on it now, it's hard to imagine
anyone being naive enough (bold enough has a better ring to it) to take
on the task of writing a book like this in the first place. Of course, I
had Myrdal's great An American Dilemma to encourage me.