ABSTRACT
Milgram conducted the obedience studies early in his professional career and then went on to apply his innovative touch to a variety of other phenomena, such as the “small world” problem and the effects of televised antisocial behavior. Yet clearly the obedience work has overshadowed his other research-it remains his best known and most widely discussed work. Of the approximately 140 invited speeches and colloquia he gave during his lifetime, more than one third dealt, directly or indirectly, with obedience.1 Milgram was still giving invited colloquia on the topic in 1984, the year he died-22 years after he completed them: one at LaSalle College on April 7 and the other at the University of Tennessee at Martin on April 26. In fact, it is somewhat ironic that his very last publications, both appearing posthumously in 1987, dealt with obedience. One appeared in the Concise Encyclopedia of Psychology (Milgram, 1987a) and the other in The Oxford Companion to the Mind (Milgram, 1987b).
