I am a disciple of Patrick Geddes, and I am an abject admirer of everything he has said and done. The tantalizing nearness of everything we most want; were it not for some fatal, stubborn grain in both of us, Geddes and I, linked together, intellectual and emotional, might still conquer the world. For lack of this, he will be imperfectly articulate and I, perhaps, will have nothing to say.

Between 1928 and 1981, architectural and cultural critic Lewis Mumford exchanged nearly six hundred letters with Melville scholar and Harvard psychologist Henry A. Murray. "In Old Friendship" documents that richly rewarding interaction. Covering fifty years of devoted camaraderie between two exceptional minds, the book offers profound insights into the intellectual frustrations behind their significant careers and the emotional needs that framed their vibrant, often dramatic lives. To Mumford, a writer who sought to change the course of world events, iconoclastic Murray became a welcome...