Bernard Silberman, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science and a 2001 recipient of the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, passed away April 28. He was 87.

Professor Silberman wrote extensively on Japanese government, and was interested in bureaucracies and organizational politics. His 1993 book, Cages of Reason: The Rise of the Rational State in France, Japan, the United States, and Great Britain, offered a provocative explanation for the bureaucratic development of the modern state through case studies of France, Japan, the United States, and Great Britain, concluding that divergent development stemmed from differences in leadership structure and levels of uncertainty about leadership succession in the 19th century. His research has been called "erudite, incisive, and vibrant," and his courses were known for challenging College students to see historical events "through the perspective of people who time seems to have forgotten."