A scholar and a showman

"For thousands of students, and many nonstudents as well, Harvey Goldberg was the greatest teacher of their lives," Ron McCrea writes in his front-page obituary for the renowned UW history professor. "He was a conscience and a catalyst, a scholar and a showman who could mount movements and move mountains despite his diminutive size.... He changed lives." David Newby, president of the Dane County Labor Council, said he would probably be in the Foreign Service had it not been for Goldberg. Jazzman Ben Sidran said he was about to go to Canada during the Vietnam War when Goldberg sent him off to the University of Sussex, England. Likening Goldberg's lectures to jazz, Sidran tells McCrea: "I can see him on the stage in the Agriculture Building. It's as clear to me as when I went to Birdland when I was 18 years old and sat there and saw the guys right in front of me. It was that electric.... It would stop you cold." A series of CDs titled The Harvey Goldberg "Bootleg Tapes," featuring 20 remastered lectures by the late UW history professor, was recently released.