Finley’s life during and just after World War II, although neglected by biographers and others interested in his career, was a formative period for him. A successful activist for Soviet-solidarity organizations, he learned lessons in public outreach that would affect his teaching and later public activity, and absorbed experiences that found their way into his first well-known book, The World of Odysseus . During this period he changed his name from Finkelstein to Finley, a shift emblematic of his adjustment to a postwar situation that would prove professionally difficult for him, yet intellectually fruitful.