Shelf Shocked

The media attention Harvard generates is unique among American universities, and more than a few books taking aim at the institution’s good name have surfaced in the past few years. 02138 compares some recent Harvard-bashing books.

by Greg Atwan
Premier Issue

Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education
By Harry R. Lewis
(Public Affairs, 2006)
Who is he: Computer science prof and disgruntled former dean of the college, pushed out by president Lawrence Summers in 2003. What’s his beef: Harvard lacks a sense of unifying purpose and mission that can be summed up in two tidy sentences. Students come away with a lot of facts, but there’s no moral to the story. Also, that Larry Summers guy is really evil. Full of: Tedious epigraphs from ancient pedagogues with names like LeBaron Russell Briggs about how much politer education was before the flood, and profundities like “When one student is accused of raping another, the college cannot make everyone happy.” Worth its weight in bile: A line about designing a curriculum we “respect” is about as specific a proposal as Lewis offers in a cri de coeur against the administration’s “empty rhetoric.” And the prose reads like it was written by a computer scientist.

Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class
By Ross Douthat
(Hyperion, 2005)
Who is he: Atlantic Monthly editor, blogger, prodigy of the young-conservative movement. What’s his beef: Today’s young elite endure a system of mixed messages in the Ivy League: work hard but expect power, fear sex but have it licentiously, be egalitarian but be the best. The result is a pathless wood of ethical blankness, where “thou shalt not disrupt thy career” is the only commandment. Full of: Wistful ruminations on an eventful undergraduate experience (from roommates to final clubs to sex to liberal profs to sit-ins to 9/11). Worth its weight in bile: Even-handed, occasionally tragic, with honeyed prose. The story about skinny-dipping with William F. Buckley Jr. is reason enough to read it, not to mention the bizarre, oddly compelling interlude on pornography: “Porn strokes, quite literally, the very Harvardian, and very American, sense of entitlement.”

Harvard Rules: Lawrence Summers and the Battle for the World’s Most Powerful University
By Richard Bradley
(Harper Collins, 2005)
Who is he: Historian, journalist, and 02138 contributor; author of American Son, a bio of JFK Jr. What’s his beef: Harvard’s increasing economic hegemony over the world has come at the price of its president, who has transformed from intellectual spearhead to coldly calculating lapdog of the university’s corporate directorship. Full of: Summers, in all of his “arrogant, patronizing, disrespectful and power-hungry” glory. The profile is rich and provocative, focusing at turns on the president’s messy divorce, messy eating habits, and messy leadership style. Worth its weight in bile: Came out before the downfall of its protagonist, so it misses the story’s denouement. Bradley does presciently surmise: “it is safe to say that neither Larry Summers nor Harvard had any idea what they were getting into.”

The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton
By Jerome Karabel
(Houghton Mifflin, 2005)
Who is he: Berkeley sociologist; studies higher education and social inequality. Not a Harvard grad, but has a lot of data about a lot of them. What’s his beef: Admission to Harvard College (as well as its peers) is still motivated—if tacitly—by an ossified philosophy of social well-roundedness initially conceived to exclude Jews and other minorities in favor of the effluent of the “St. Grottlesex” prep school system. Full of: Endnotes. More than 100 pages of them. The historical record is astounding and, if a reader’s attention span holds, damning: Harvard’s ecumenicalism—welcoming Jews, blacks, and Asians over the last few decades—has been certifiably accidental. Worth its weight in bile: 88% of customers viewing the book on Amazon eventually decide to buy The Chosen by Chaim Potok instead. Reads at times like a novel, particularly the vivid profiles of Harvard president A. Lawrence Lowell and Woodrow Wilson.

Related Content:

• 
  The Z-List is the New A-List
• 
  The Power House
• 
  Michael Bloomberg
• 
  Keith Gessen
• 
  Dmitri Nabokov
• 
  The Internationalist
• 
  The Accountant Who Roared
• 
  The Crusader
• 
  Book Ends

Keywords:

• Books & Authors,
• Academia

Mentioned:

• 
  Daniel Golden
• 
  LeBaron Briggs
• 
  Ross Douthat
• 
  Richard Bradley : GSAS Class of 1990
• 
  Abbot Lawrence Lowell : College Class of 1877 : HLS Class of 1880
• 
  Derek Bok : HLS Class of 1954
• 
  Harry Lewis : College Class of 1968 : GSAS Class of 1973 : GSAS Class of 1974
• 
  Lawrence Summers : GSAS Class of 1982