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If Harvard can be said to have a literature all its own, then few universities can equal it in scope. Here lies the reason for this anthology--a collection of what Harvard men (teachers, students, graduates) have written about Harvard in the more than three centuries of its history. The emphasis is upon entertainment, upon readability; and the selections have been arranged to show something of the many variations of Harvard life.

For all Harvard men--and that part of the general public which is interested in American college life--here is a rich treasury. In such a Harvard collection one may expect to find the giants of Harvard's last 75 years, Eliot, Lowell, and Conant, attempting a definition of what Harvard means. But there are many other familiar names - Henry Dunster, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Henry Adams, Charles M. Flandrau, William and Henry James, Owen Wister, Thomas Wolfe, John P. Marquaud. Here is Mistress Eaton's confession about the bad fish served to the wretched students of Harvard's early years; here too is President Holyoke's account of the burning of Harvard Hall; a student's description of his trip to Portsmouth with that aged and Johnsonian character, Tutor Henry Flynt; Cleveland Amory's retelling of the murder of Dr. George Parkman; Mayor Quiney's story of what happened in Cambridge when Andrew Jackson came to get an honorary degree; Alistair Cooke's commentary on the great Harvard-Yale cricket match of 1951. There are many sorts of Harvard men in this book--popular fellows like Hammersmith, snobs like Bertie and Billy, the sensitive and the lonely like Edwin Arlington Robinson and Thomas Wolfe, and independent thinkers like John Reed. Teachers and pupils, scholars and sports, heroes and rogues pass across the Harvard stage through the struggles and the tragedies to the moments of triumph like the Bicentennial or the visit of Winston Churchill.

And speaking of visits, there are the visitors too--the first impressions of Harvard set down by an assortment of travelers as various as Dickens, Trollope, Rupert Brooke, Harriet Martineau, and Francisco de Miranda, the "precursor of Latin American independence."

For the Harvard addict this volume is indispensable. For the general reader it is the sort of book that goes with a good living-room fire or the blissful moments of early to bed.

Customer Reviews (1)

Easy To Praise
THE HARVARD BOOK is awarded by the Harvard Alumni Association to High School juniors who combine excellence in scholarship with achievement in other fields. The book contains more than 100 short articles about Harvard experiences by a wide assortment of contributors - many of whom are famous writers. The essays cover almost the entire period of Harvard's existence since 1636. Some of my favorites are by Samuel Eliot Morison, William James, John P. Marquand, David McCord, John Reed, John Updike and David Halberstam. The book is easy to enjoy and praise. The quality of the writing is very high. ... Read more

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In 1911 Cora Wilson Stewart founded the Moonlight Schools in Rowan County, Kentucky, an innovative night program that taught illiterate adults to read. Hoping that 150 people would attend the first classes, Stewart was amazed that over 1,200 men and women enrolled. She quickly developed reading material for these men and women that appealed to them instead of the children's texts that most educators were using with adults. With the success of the Moonlight Schools, Stewart moved forward in her crusade against illiteracy; she quickly became the most prominent advocate for the cause on both the national and international scene. Stewart took the fight against illiteracy at a time when it was an accepted part of American life. She shocked the nation when she pointed out that 25 percent of the men who signed up for the draft in 1917 could neither read nor write. From her beginnings in the mountains of Kentucky, she went on to chair the Illiteracy Section of the World Conference of Education Associations five times; she founded the National Illiteracy Crusade in 1926. She even received one vote for president at the 1920 Democratic convention. Her crusade came despite the fact she was a victim of domestic abuse who suffered through three failed marriages. Her life reflects the challenges faced by female reformers in the early part of the 20th century. ... Read more

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Each year thirty-two seniors at American universities are awarded Rhodes Scholarships, which entitle them to spend two or three years studying at the University of Oxford. The program, founded by the British colonialist and entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes and established in 1903, has become the worlds most famous academic scholarship and has brought thousands of young Americans to study in England. Many of these later became national leaders in government, law, education, literature, and other fields. Among them were the politicians J. William Fulbright, Bill Bradley, and Bill Clinton; the public policy analysts Robert Reich and George Stephanopoulos; the writers Robert Penn Warren and Naomi Wolf; the entertainer Kris Kristofferson; and the Supreme Court Justices Byron White and David Souter. Based on extensive research in published and unpublished documents and on hundreds of interviews, this book traces the history of the program and the stories of many individuals. In addition it addresses a host of questions such as: how important was the Oxford experience for the individual scholars? To what extent has the program created an old-boy (-girl since 1976) network that propels its member to success? How many Rhodes Scholars have cracked under the strain and failed to live up to expectations? How have the Americans coped with life in Oxford and what have they thought of Britain in general? Beyond the history of the program and the individuals involved, this book also offers a valuable examination of the American-British cultural encounter. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Pretty Good
I was forced to buy this book, because I participated in one of Dr. Schaeper's classes at St. Bonaventure.And because it was required for the class and had moderate relativity to the class, I REFUSED TO READ THE BOOK.This is coming from a poor college student.

However, Just last year, I was going through my books looking for something to read and I picked up "COWBOYS INTO GENTLEMEN RHODES SCHOLARS OXFORD AND THE CREATION OF AN AMERICAN ELITE." I read his book on a personal level, and found it quite entertaining.

This deserves 4 stars

Well written and Informational
This book not only reflects the incredible talent these two have for information but also the knack they posses for teaching

This book was well written and precise...
Kathleen Schaeper teaches at my high school and is a really great teacher. And just as her teaching methods are precise and to the point, so is this book. It has great pictures and is a great book over all if you areinterested in the history of the Rhodes Scholar. ... Read more

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The book includes engaging articles to stimulate and hold the interest of students who are reading below grade level. Lower reading levels are achieved through the use of controlled vocabulary, simple sentence structure, and clear illustrations.

The questions and student activity sheets are designed to improve the reading comprehension skills of remedial readers. The articles and activities can be used as part of a teacher-directed lesson or assigned as independent work.
... Read more

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The first part of this volume is a biographical sketch of Paulo Freire's life, the context within which he worked and the texts which he has produced. The second part reviews and questions Freire's method and his philosophy of contradiction. ... Read more

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Periodic "crises" in our academic culture remind us that the organization of our intellectual life is a product of history -- neither fixed by the logic of social development nor inherent in the nature of knowledge itself. At a time of much unease in academia and among the general public about the relation of intellect to public life, Thomas Bender explores both the nineteenth-century origins and the twentieth-century configurations of academic intellect in the United States.

Intellect and Public Life pays special attention to the changing relationship of academic to urban culture. Examining the historical tensions faced by intellectuals who aspired to be at once academics and citizens, Bender traces the growing commitment of intellectuals to professional expertise and autonomy. He finds, as well, a historical pattern of academic withdrawal from the public discussion of matters of general concern. Yet the volume concludes on a hopeful note. With the demise of the classical republican notion of the public, Bender contends, there has emerged a more pluralistic notion of the public that -- combined with the revival of interest in pragmatic theories of truth -- may offer the possibility of a richer collaboration of democracy and intellect.

"[An] excellent collection of essays." -- Peter Scott, Times Higher Education Supplement

"Bender's positive, generous, civil voice injects a soothing dose of optimism into current academic debates, and his invocation of 'public culture' delivers a needed antidote to the spurious concept that shares the same initial consonants." -- Mary Ryan, American Quarterly

"[A] sparkling and insightful volume." -- Canadian Review of American Studies

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These autobiographical and analytical essays by a diverse group of professors and graduate students from working-class families reveal an academic world in which "blue-collar work is invisible." Describing conflict and frustration, the contributors expose a divisive middle-class bias in the university setting. Many talk openly about how little they understood about the hierarchy and processes of higher education, while others explore how their experiences now affect their relationships with their own students. They all have in common the anguish of choosing to hide their working-class background, to keep the language of home out of the classroom and the ideas of school away from home. These startlingly personal stories highlight the fissure between a working-class upbringing and the more privileged values of the institution. C. L. Barney Dews is visiting Assistant Professor of American Literature in the English and Foreign Languages Department, University of West Florida. Carolyn Leste Law is a Doctoral Candidate in English at the University of Minnesota. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Voices to be heard
I read a selection from this book for a class, which prompted me to read the rest of the book.Really interesting narratives written by a number of first generation university students from a number of races and cultures, all from working class backgrounds.

A common theme is the feeling of living in two worlds - home and school - worlds which seldom intersect.Students speak of trying to fit in with peers who were more well off, explaining why they didn't have money to go out on the weekend, or why they couldn't attend various events or spring break flings because they had to work.

Entitlement - not quite feeling like they belonged at the university... watching peers walk around like they owned the place and were born to it.

Identity - being changed by the college experience, and wondering how the experience would change their relationship with family/community who seemed, by comparison, so unchanged.Several spoke of becoming bi-lingual - speaking one way at the university and another at home.Communication styles that were vital to being understood and accepted both places.

The irony of higher education being such a point of pride for the family, who made huge sacrifices for the student to be the first in the family - not knowing that the college experience would potentially pull the student away from identifying with that family/community working-class culture.

University values - While schools are at least talking about racial unity, there was less attention given to class unity.Many struggled with the idea that the whole purpose of getting a university education was to "get a brighter future", a "better opportunity", to "escape" having to work a blue collar job.If blue collar is who I am and who my famliy is, why is that something to escape?These were conflicting messages for many... be inclusive and sensitive to differences, but the white collar world is a higher, more worthy pursuit.

The only reason I gave it 4 out of 5 stars is the length of the book.The narrative format is engaging, but I felt the collection was a little lengthy to hold my interest through the entire book because the themes were repeated quite often in each narrative.Still worth the read, this perspective needs to be heard! ... Read more

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This collection of essays is designed to show how a mediocre high school sophomore matured into a college honors student.This collection is an intimate look at how a boy became a man. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An atempt to make a book without writing one.
I was not very satisfied with my purchase of this so-called "book."It seems as though the author wanted to write a book but did not want to dedicate the time.On the positive side, the author did find a good way to keep his old homework assignments from gathering dust. ... Read more

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Few North Carolinians are as well known or as widely respected as William Friday. Although he has never run for elected office, the former president of the University of North Carolina has been prominent in public affairs for decades and ranks as one of the most important American university presidents of the post-World War II era. In this comprehensive biography, William Link traces Friday's long and remarkable career.

Friday's thirty years as president of the university, from 1956 to 1986, spanned the greatest period of growth for higher education in American history, and he played a crucial role in shaping the sixteen-campus university during that time of tumultuous social change. In the 1960s and 1970s, he confronted a series of administrative challenges, including the expansion of the university system, the evolving role of the federal government in the affairs of a public university, an intercollegiate athletics scandal, the anticommunism crusade and the Speaker Ban, and racial integration.

Link also explores Friday's influential work outside the university in American higher education, on the Carnegie Commission on the Future of American Education and the White House Task Force on Education, and in the development of the National Humanities Center and the growth of Research Triangle Park. Now retired from the university, Friday heads the William R. Kenan, Jr., Fund and the Kenan Charitable Trust. ... Read more

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nothiag look alike this book
sory i don,tread this book but i love it ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (11)

Denying the Holocaust to Great Acclaim
Mary Lefkowitz has a point: The Greek philosopher Aristotle "could not have stolen his ideas from the [Egyptian] library at Alexandria, because [there is much historical evidence to suggest the library] was built after his death". She makes this point on Page 9 of this book, and then again on Page 28, and then again on Page 36, and then again on Page 67, and then again on Pages 72-73, and then again on Page 76, and on and on. Since the text of this book covers only 160 pages in all, the reader gets the point--she does not have much to say. Over the past fifteen years, she has used blogs, emails, newspaper articles and two books to fluff up her scholarly reputation among whites (and her bank account) with vitriolic denunciations of Tony Martin and his Afrocentric brethren, even though the FACTS and TRUTH she claims to be custodian of are about events that occurred more than 2,000 years ago, and NOBODY can establish what happened with any accuracy, because the evidence is fragmentary and confusing. Although she, her husband, a Jewish student at Wellesley, and several Jewish organizations initiated every quarrel, insult, and dispute that occurred with Tony Martin and the Afrocentrists, she claims that it was she who was the victim. She, and four Jewish organizations interfered with Tony Martin's Wellesley courses, got him censured by the Wellesley college president, and tried to get him fired from his job for teaching black students ideas she does not agree with, but she claims that she is the one who deserves sympathy for all the trouble she caused. On Page 49 of this book, Prof. Lefkowitz contradicts an African-American student who [claimed that] "six million slaves ... had died in transit to the Americas" by writing that "in fact the figure was probably more like one million". Really! Well, NOBODY knows how many Africans perished in the slave trade, but if you count the death toll in the coastal slave holding facilities of West Africa used for slave shipments, the Jamaican and Brazilian slave camps receiving new arrivals from Africa, and the casualties of the Middle Passage itself, the educated guesses made by most scholars occupy a range that runs into many more millions than that. In other words, Mary Lefkowitz is a denier of the African Holocaust, but, to great acclaim from her numerous white supporters, proclaims in this book (and in many other places) that it is the Afrocentrists who are the racists. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

A short course in determining truth
As someone without any experience in the academic world (other than my own college education), this book was a brief and straight-to-the-point introduction to the intrigues that accompany the impassioned debates of this milieu.

Even if you don't want to read the entire book, the introduction can be read alone as a succinct course in the issues of Afrocentrism and post-modernism and of their polarized factions in the study of the classics. In these opening pages, the author summarizes her run-in as a professor at Wellesley with the concept that truth is relative and that the past can be rewritten -- and thus sacrified -- to promote the racial social agendas of today. To write so clearly with little of the clutter of academic thought is no small feat.

Whether or not the Greeks stole their culture and philosophy from Egypt and whether or not Egyptians can be considered Africans doesn't have a huge impact on my life. But whether the truth is relative, or whether it can be known -- and should be promoted -- is a question that has daily relevance to me. I'm glad that there are those who, like Mary Lefkowitz, are willing to defend historical facts and truth even at great personal cost.

RAGEOdyssey
"History Lesson" by Mary Lefkowitz.
Subtitled: "A Race Odyssey".
Yale University Press, 2008.

My conception was that Wellesley College (1875) was one of those WASP institutions in New England, filled with waspish young ladies taught by WASP professors.This book, "History Lesson", has turned that into a MISconception.My second misconception was that faculty discussions were quiet, almost dull meetings in a large board room, with a big mahogany table, and a fire roaring in the fireplace. Tea and crumpets were served.Voices were NEVER raised as the faculty spoke about the correct translation (from the ancient Greek) of line number so and so on page such and such of Homer's "Odyssey".The third misconception was that there were no riots, no sit-ins, no demonstrations on the placid and beautiful Wellesley campus.

This book, "History Lesson", by Professor Mary Lefkowitz, has shown me that all my ideas about Wellesley were misconceptions.Years ago, Professor Lefkowitz became embroiled in a controversyabout the validity of certain aspects of Africana studies.The good Africana professor, male and black, viewed the world through black glasses and, therefore, considered various Greek philosophers as thieves who stolen their great ideas from black men (notably from the famous ancient library at Alexandria).Professor Lefkowitz, who is Jewish, began to write corrections about the obvious mistakes. Clearly, the protagonists, the black male professor and the Jewish female professor,do not qualify as WASPs.(Neither do I.When I was working on my MA, History, at a state college in Massachusetts, I had to remind the Professor of "The American West", that some of us, with blue eyes, and fair skin, and blond hair [when I had hair] do NOT want to be called "Anglos".I am Celtic by descent. )

As the good author then records, the discourse was hardly civil and elegant.In fact, the author writes of an incidence in which the black professor, tall and masculine, intimidates a young lady student so greatly that she withdraws from Wellesley.The "exchange of ideas", if it can be called that, goes back and forth in various journals and articles, resulting in name calling by the black professor ... whose actions can objectively be termed anti-Semitic. This then results in the black professor taking the Jewish professor to court. The law suit, the appeals, etc. are described in excoriating detail by Professor Lefkowitz in this book.Heaven help us, Mary Lefkowitz actually writes that her assignedlawyer, Michael Gallagher,understood "...why I objected to the notion that Aristotle had stolen his philosophy from the library at Alexandria.Gallagher had majored in classics at Holy Cross." (page 98). Of course, Holy Cross is a Jesuit college, founded in1843 by Irishmen in Worcester, Massachusetts. Professor Lefkowitz had to look outside of Wellesley for succor.

One of the interesting descriptions by Mary Lefkowitz is that of then Wellesley President, Nan Keohane, born in Arkansas. President Keohane did not appear to understand the objections of Professor Lefkowitz to untrue history of philosophy.Ms. Keohane did little to tamp the fires of rhetoric and return the discussion into my conception of the board room with tea and crumpets and quiet tones. Keohane went on to the presidency of Duke University. Controversy continued at Wellesley.

There were sit-ins and loud lack of decorum at various meetings and presentations about the controversy ... not only at Wellesley College, but also at other institutions of "higher' learning.If you want to discover who won the law suits, and who won the appeals, and who apologized to whom ....you'll have to read her book.As for me, I am happy that my undergraduate degree was in Electrical Engineering, from the only Catholic engineering college in New York City.Thirty five years in the engineering business appears milder than the "Rage Odyssey" that the two professors experienced.By the way, both of them are now retied.

A strike against political correctness
In this brief volume, classicist Mary Lefkowitz tells the story of how she "got in a lot of trouble" for exposing the vicious irrationality of Afrocentricism in general and that of her Wellesley colleague Tony Martin in specific.She also correctly indicts a lazy postmodernism for the continued academic indifference to professors who indoctrinate their students with socially satisfying myths.

Lefkowitz has been justly praised for her defense of historical truth, and she continues to believe that her personal struggle enabled her to "convince quite a few people that myth shouldn't be taught as history." (149)Nevertheless, she takes as much refuge as possible from the protective coloration of the academy, firmly supporting tenure even for professors who turn history into fiction or into hate.

Lefkowitz has been through the wringer on this issue, but it might have been a lot worse.In defending herself from anti-Semitic Afrocentrists, Lefkowitz retained the politically correct high ground, and she also received significant financial and legal backing from Jewish advocacy groups.What if the Afrocentrists had defamed a different minority, such as fundamentalist Christians?

History in Black and White
I have read many books similar to Mary Lefokowitz's "History Lesson".It's a genre of its own:"books about the perils of postmodernism".The classic of the field is Paul Gross and Norman Levitt's Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science. You can read about the pernicious effects of Post Modernism on science studies in Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont's Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science, on history in In Defense of History and in The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists are Murdering Our Past, on Women's Studies in Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women's Studies, on Middle East studies in Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America (Policy Papers (Washington Institute for Near East Policy), No. 58.) (Policy Papers ... Institute for Near East Policy), No. 58.), etc.

What it all amounts to is something like this:one effect of the 1960s was the spread of French Theory (works by the like of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan) to America.The French theorists and their American disciples (henceforth "the Postmodernists") abandoned traditional beliefs in truth and objectivity, and substituted them with a variety of theories, in which claims for truth are labeled "meta-narratives" and are received skeptically, as representing the point of view of the (dead, white, European) elite.The postmodernists promote instead the narrative of "the other": women, minorities, the insane, etc -and privilege those instead of the mainstream narratives.

"History Lesson" is very much inline with that of these other books.But it is no dissection of Postmodernist influence in Lefkowitz's chosen field - ancient history.Lefkowitz has already published such a book (Not Out Of Africa: How "Afrocentrism" Became An Excuse To Teach Myth As History (A New Republic Book) which I haven't read).In that book Lefkowitz has challenged the claims of a Postmodernist sub-specie which goes under the name "Afrocentrism".Afrocentrists believe that Africa deserves credit for much of the West's achievements in science andd philosophy.Specifically, Afro centrists frequently claim that historical Greek figures such as Cleopatra and Sophocles were black; That Greek philosophy has Egyptian origins, and that Aristotle read his philosophy in the Library of Alexandria (which was actually constructed after he had died p. 28).

"History Lesson" is the story of Lefkowitz's confrontation with Afrocentrism, and a reflection on the meaning of the phenomena.

The villain of "History Lesson" is one Anthony "Tony" Martin, Professor of Africana Studies in Wellesley College (where Lefkowitz also teaches), an unpleasant man, a bully, and an African American prone to constantly playing the race card (I wish to stress that this is the man as depicted in "History Lesson".Until I read the book I have never heard of Dr. Martin).Dr. Martin has been teaching an Afro-centric course for quite some time when Dr. Lefkowitz, as part of a crusade against Afrocentrism, started to publicly criticize it.

Some of Lefkowitz criticism was less than politic.She has pushed to change the name of Martin's course from "Africans in Greece and Rome" to "Africans in the Greco-Roman World".An empty gesture, as the content of the course was to remain the same, but one can understand Martin's irritation at the change, which he pressured the dean into reversing (pp. 47-48).

At the time, Lefkowitz felt quite alone in her campaign against the Afrocentric claims.Martin and some colleagues and students criticized Lefkowitz, and the college administration did not feel like taking the sides of the Grecians; Historical truth was not worth fighting for.

Things changed when it came to be known that Martin's teachings included not only slander against Grecians, but also against Jews.Unlike the Grecians, attacking the Jews was not OK.The administration and fellow professors criticized Martin.Some of the criticism was heavy handed.Four Jewish groups "called upon the Trustees and administration of Wellesley to review the behavior and status of Martin" (p. 80).

The situation has gotten out of hand.Martin went on to self publish a genuine anti-Semitic tract, The Jewish Onslaught: Dispatches from the Wellesley Battlefront; He also sued Lefkowitz (among others) for libel.

The trial could have been the dramatic event of the book, but it is passed over quite quickly and with little fanfare.It took five years, but Lefkowitz had support from her insurance company and from various Jewish organizations.She won.

The book continues to its anti Climatic conclusion.No great evil befell Dr. Lefkowitz.One of the Amazon reviewers calls her "very brave"; this is silly.Lefkowitz's critique did cost her some strong and unfair criticism, but there's no indication that her livelihood or her career were at any great risk.Her confrontation with Afrocentrism got her into some hot water, but it also gave her a great deal of publicity, and maybe money;Her anti-Afrocentrism book "Not Out of Africa" has at the time of this writing 154 Amazon reviews;Her Women's Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation has three.Lefkowitz was clearly on the side of the angels - but there were many more angels than adversaries in this fight.

The bigger question is what if anything should be done about Postmodernist muddleheaded-ness in the academy.Lefkowitz calls for more civil discussion with more focus on facts, which is a noble call likely to go unheeded, and for genteel tinkering with the tenure system.

Two obvious types of reform may be attempted for improving academic standards.One is weakening Tenure.There is an inevitable trade off between independence and accountability.Under the current system, tenured professors are independent.This relieves them from outside pressures, both proper and improper.That at least some would abuse these pressures is inevitable.Weakening tenure would make Professors more accountable, and therefore probably better; but it would weaken their independence, and would make them more thralls of the zeitgeist, and potentially slaves to nefarious interests.

More promising is a reform of the various ethnic, gender, and region studies units of various institutes of higher education.I do not know what goes on in the average women's studies center or Jewish studies department, etc, but it seems that the worst abuses come from those units.This is probably inevitable - the gathering of like minded people of similar backgrounds is likely to promote group solidarity and groupthink.Making sure that these centers are well integrated to the mainstream of the university life would not only reduce the occasions (which may be rare already) of absurdist anti Intellectual Fads - it would also allow the majority of students and faculty to benefit from more perspectives.(See the discussion of the attempt to partially reintegrate Cornell University in Richard Thompson Ford's masterly The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse).

Or perhaps we should do nothing; There is already a strong backlash against Post Modernism.Much of it is not measured and targeted but constitutes right wing paranoia as substitute for left wing inanity.Perhaps we should leave the various combatants to fight it out in the marketplace of ideas. ... Read more

Product Description
As the University of Texas at Austin celebrates its 125th anniversary, it can justly claim to be a "university of the first class," as mandated in the Texas Constitution. The university's faculty and student body include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the MacArthur "genius award," and Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships, as well as members of learned societies all over the world. UT's athletic programs are said to be the best overall in the United States, and its libraries, museums, and archives are lauded in every educated part of the world. Texas alumni have made their marks in law, engineering, geology, business, journalism, and all fields of the sciences, arts, and entertainment. The Texas Book gathers together personality profiles, historical essays, and first-person reminiscences to create an informal, highly readable history of UT. Many fascinating characters appear in these pages, including visionary president and Ransom Center founder Harry Huntt Ransom, contrarian English professor and Texas folklorist J. Frank Dobie, legendary regent and lightning rod Frank C. Erwin, and founder of the field of Mexican American Studies, Américo Paredes. The historical pieces recall some of the most dramatic and challenging episodes in the university's history, including recurring attacks on the school by politicians and regents, the institution's history of segregation and struggles to become a truly diverse university, the sixties' protest movements, and the Tower sniper shooting. Rounding off the collection are reminiscences by former and current students and faculty, including Walter Prescott Webb, Willie Morris, Betty Sue Flowers, J. M. Coetzee, and Barbara Jordan, who capture the spirit of the campus at moments in time that defined their eras. ... Read more

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A New Perspective on the University of Texas
Since 1979 I have lived in central Austin where it is impossible not to be aware of the University of Texas.I have attended events on the campus, walked there on weekend mornings when it is peaceful, and been blocked in my driveway by people attending football games.But I have never felt related to that institution.Reading this book changed my attitude.The Texas Book, by Richard Holland, is a fascinating collection of essays and reminiscences over the history of the school.The many voices the author has gathered tell stories that we are unlikely to encounter anywhere else.It is not a rah-rah Texas book, but the honest insights of people who lived through some of the most interesting events on that campus.I found it fascinating.If you read it I promise you will find new interest in that institution. ... Read more

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Scholars engage the ideas and legacy of Cary Nelson in conversations about the corporate university, teaching, poetry, and activism. ... Read more

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A Contributor's Note
As a contributor to CARY NELSON AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE UNIVERSITY, I suppose my opinion has to be regarded as hopelessly biased--and it is.Still, I feel compelled to say how much I have learned from many of the essays in this book: from Andrew Ross's analysis of the incursion and corporate "branding" of American higher education in China; from Marc Bousquet's interrogation of the culture of university management; from great essays by Karen Jackson Ford and Michael Thurston on the expanding canon of American poetry; and much more.Cary Nelson has made major contributions to our understanding of the three domains identified in the collection's subtitle, and this book does as well.I am proud to have played a small part in it, and I think readers will find this volume of great interest.

Review for Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University
The book jacket uses a brief quote from Paula Rabinowitz. Here is her full commentary:

"Cary Nelson is an institution. That goes without saying. What this remarkable tribute to his life and work makes clear is that his combination of tenacious archival skills, brilliant intellectual interventions, fearless efforts on behalf of the profession's downtrodden, and savvy institutional maneuvers coalesce into a dynamic, generous, and provocative teacher. As a scholar, critic, organizer, and thorn-in-the-side of complacent academia, Cary teaches by doing. His students are everywhere, reshaping the discipline and institutions in crucial and exciting ways. Cary gives us all license to fly to the edges of thought and activism, knowing that the risks are worth it. His prophetic legacy in print and on the street has institutionalized seemingly disparate projects: An obsession with covers of obscure left-wing magazines legitimated visual cultural studies as a field for literary scholarship. A raucous challenge to stodgy committee procedures led to the AAUP presidency. Even those who disagree with him cannot ignore his presence on so many fronts--from websites to archives, from op-eds to picket lines, from the MLA to the graduate seminar. As one of the major figures within American letters working both sides of the street--scholarship and politics--Cary Nelson exemplifies the committed intellectual. This book recognizes him as a faculty model in just the way one wants: a readable, learned, and politically astute collection full of love and rage."

Paula Rabinowitz, author of They Must Be Represented: _The Politics of Documentary_
... Read more

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This book offers portraits of nine institutions of higher education that were salvaged from seeming failure by the administrative tactics of their respective presidents or chancellors. The authors have analyzed the circumstances which presented themselves to each president and the organizational changes each engineered. In so doing, commonalities and differences among the strategies employed are revealed. ... Read more

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Critical understanding...
A great indepth study and critical understandig of what it takes for great leadership to succeed. A must read for any institutional turnaround. ... Read more