It is over four years since (in May 1959) I gave the Rede Lecture at Cambridge. I chose a subject which several of us had been discussing for some time past. I hoped at most to act as a goad to action, first in education and second—in my own mind the latter part of the lecture was always the more pressing—in sharpening the concern of rich and privileged societies for those less lucky. I did not expect much. Plenty of people were saying similar things. It seemed to me to be a time when one should add one's voice. I thought I might be listened to in some restricted circles. Then the effect would soon die down: and in due course, since I was deeply committed, I should feel obliged to have another go.

For a while that appeared to be a reasonable prognosis. According to precedent, the lecture was published, as a paper-covered pamphlet, the day after it was delivered. It received some editorial attention, but, in the first months, not many reviews. There was not, and could not be, any advertising. Encounter published long extracts, and these drew some comment. I had a number of interesting private letters. That, I thought, was the end of it.

It did not turn out quite like that. By the end of the first year I began to feel uncomfortably like the sorcerer's apprentice. Articles, references, letters, blame, praise, were floating in—often from countries where I was otherwise unknown.