A dense sociological report on the facts and falsehoods of the political leanings of professors.
Gross (Sociology/Univ. of British Columbia; Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher, 2008, etc.) examines the facts behind the conservative movement’s oft-heard criticism of higher education: that American universities are, as presidential candidate Rick Santorum famously said, little more than “indoctrination mills” for the political left.
Relying on years of research, the author confirms that conservatives are correct in their belief that many professors align themselves on the liberal spectrum, though he notes also that academia has far fewer radical professors in its midst than generally thought. While a mere 8 percent of professors self-identify as “radical,” a recent study revealed that 62 percent of students believed the term accurately described their professors—proof of the conservative movement’s ability to perpetuate the myth of the radical professor. Gross readily acknowledges that some conservative scholars may feel outnumbered in a university’s social science department but that the professor’s marginalized status is hardly any different than “progressives at some elite law firms.” More interesting than academia’s demographics, however, are the causes of these demographics. In short: What is at the root of liberalism in academia? Do liberal academics share a different value system than their conservative counterparts? Does self-selection play a role? To what extent does one’s politics affect one’s career path? And a related question: How can professors protect their academic freedoms in an environment so closely tied to the politicians who hold the purse strings? Gross examines all of these questions and more, often overwhelming readers with facts and figures that lead to somewhat nebulous conclusions. Its academic tone—while appropriate given the subject matter—reminds readers that an academic in academia produced it. While Gross’ neutrality is admirable, his work’s inability to open itself up to a wider audience risks confining a valuable debate to the primary players within it.
A dense sociological report on the facts and falsehoods of the political leanings of professors.Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0674059092
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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