Edward Christie Banfield (November 19, 1916 – September 30, 1999) was an American political scientist, best known as the author of The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (1958), and The Unheavenly City (1970).
[1] One of the leading scholars of his generation, Banfield was an adviser to three Republican presidents: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan.
His wife, Laura Fasano Banfield, learned Italian as a child, and she helped her husband with his book about Chiaromonte, a poor village in Southern Italy (The Moral Basis of a Backward Society).
He argued that "the real reason for the passage" of the legislation establishing the National Endowment for the Arts "was, and is, to benefit... the culture industry of New York City.
[7] According to MacInnes, Banfield: His Harvard colleagues described him as "an individual with a strong and distinctive character that impressed itself on all who met him" and as a man who enjoyed " the delights of humor, long meals, and friendly company.