Famous mathematician Alexander Grothendieck may have published many more scientific works if it wasn’t for his withdrawal from the scientific community in 1970. This withdrawal was not one of exhaustion or completion, however, but one of activism. Grothendieck’s actions were calculated, and were all part of a much larger picture of radical political activism that took a high priority throughout his life.
Grothendieck’s parents provided the foundation of his political outlook. Both his Jewish father and German mother were anarchists, and left the country when Alexander was just a child, in part to fight in the Spanish civil war. During his teenage years, Grothendieck lived in sheltered camps to escape from the Nazi faction. His father was not as successful, and died in Auschwitz.
These significant events throughout his childhood formed the foundation for his radical views. He thought of himself as a radical anarchist, with strong pacifistic sentiments. This meant that he stood in strong opposition to both capitalist America’s actions in Vietnam and Soviet expansion. He did not stop at simply believing his convictions to be correct, however. Among other political protests, Grothendieck taught lectures in the forests surrounding the Vietnamese city of Hanoi while it was actively being bombed.
It was this political activism that led him to leave the IHES, the group funding most of his research. He left stating the cause for his departure was discovering the military funding, and some military applications, or research at IHES. While this is likely true, it is also not the full story. Due both to his background and his views as a class struggle anarchist, Grothendeick always related very deeply to the poor and downtrodden, and his presence in the scientific community felt caging.
After his departure from IHES, Grothendieck worked as a professor at the University of Montpellier until 1988. He continued writing on politically heated topics, and launched direct criticisms of the scientific community for what he viewed as its ethical compromises. These same ethical compromises prompted him to publicly decline the Crafoord Prize in 1988. His writings became minimal after 1991, but still contained political overtones.