Athanasios (Tom) Asimakopulos, 28 May 1930–25 May 1990: A Memoir

Abstract

Tom Asimakopulos died in Montreal on 25 May 1990 after a long and courageous fight against leukaemia. Marika writes (29 June 1990): ‘Tom was … a fighter. He said he’d never give up, and he didn’t’, typically characteristic of a nevertheless gentle man noted for his honesty, integrity and determination. He faced the last years of his life with cheerfulness, an almost detached analysis of his condition, and consideration and concern, allied with his usual efficiency and order in practical matters, for his much loved family. I rang him every fortnight or so in the first half of 1990. His voice always came through strong and positive, a true index of his splendid attitude. In the last week of his life I was able to tell him that his book with Cambridge University Press, Keynes’s General Theory and Accumulation (1991), had been accepted ‘as is’. He was delighted, as he was also to see a drawing by Julia, their younger daughter, on the cover of the 1990: 1 issue of Development, the SID journal. Those who knew him deeply mourn an irreplaceable loss. But I am sure that, like me, they rejoice at having had the privilege of knowing Tom; and his attitudes to life and work will continue to inspire them.