Shots In The Dark

I've been frustrated with some of the reviews of Harvard Rules, because they're so ideologically predictable. Liberals haven't been asked to review the book. Conservatives (like the Wall Street Journal's Diane Ravitch) don't like the book, because they've circled the wagons around Larry Summers. So they criticize the book, without actually pointing to anything wrong inside it.

I'll link to some of those reviews as soon as I can find them online--Ravitch's appeared in the New York Sun—because, what the heck, if I can dish it out, I ought to be able to take it.

Sometimes, though, you get a review that you really want to share. Like this one from Publisher's Weekly:

<<In an attempt to place Harvard's current president, Larry Summers, in historical perspective, this intriguing study explores his policies, leadership style and previous career in reference to other presidents as far back as Charles W. Eliot (president from 1869-1909). Bradley, author of the bestselling American Son: A Portrait of John F. Kennedy, writes with tactful reserve about the backroom intrigues and infighting that have characterized Summer's presidency, always showing both sides of the issues-and the book is no less gripping for it. These struggles, involving such luminaries as Cornel West, Skip Gates, Robert Rubin and Alan Dershowitz, are riveting even when handled with kid gloves. But Bradley addresses much more than simply the contentious start to Summer's tenure at Harvard. On the one hand, he offers an insightful look at how the role of the American university president has changed from a moral and intellectual leader independent of political and corporate power to the administrator of an institution largely dependent on corporate and government largesse for its continued existence. On the other, he places Harvard's development and growth in a larger context, exploring its shifting goals, pedagogy and values in reference to other prestigious American universities such as Princeton, Stanford and Yale, as well as to American society in general. On a whole host of issues-including unionization, civil rights, affirmative action and militarism-Bradley uses events at Harvard to illuminate wider social trends and vice versa. Although Harvard alums will naturally gravitate toward this timely volume, it will also appeal to anyone concerned with the evolving relationship between higher education and American society.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.>>>

Thanks, PW. That is exactly what I was trying to do—use Harvard as a microcosm for trends in American universities generally while detailing a specific and compelling narrative. I'll be honest: this makes my day.