David A. Wilson

Final Exam: a Memoir David A. Wilson

Final Exam A Memoir is a fascinating and witty story of an active and observant pilgrim in the middle of the Twentieth Century. The author, David Wilson, Professor Emeritus, at the University of California Los Angeles, reveals in detail his memories throughout his life. Peripatetic from the start he was born in Rockford, IL., grew up to ten in La Grange; then lived a few years in upstate New York and Toledo, OH. He served in the US Navy in WW II. In the subsequent years he traveled widely and was swept into the struggle against McCarthyism and the turbulence on campuses in the 1960's. The memoir also throws light on the growth of foreign area studies, particularly Southeast Asia, where he lived for many years. As a professor he was not only active in teaching and research but also in university politics and administration. Professor Wilson is the author of books and articles about Thailand and also about higher education. The story will be interesting to the author's contemporaries as well as younger readers.