Robert J. Samuelson, the provocative columnist for the Washington Post, was a student of Banfield.  He wrote a touching tribute to Banfield upon his death: “The Gift of a Great Teacher,” Washington Post, October 14, 1999.

Below are shots of a copy of Samuelson’s impishly titled The Good Life and Its Discontents: The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement, 1945-1995 (Times Books, 1997) that he gave to Banfield. The inscription reads, “To Ed, a great teacher, with thanks, from one of his not-so-great students.  Sam”