New Books in Education

What can judges do to change society? Fifty-seven years ago, the Supreme Court resolved to find out: the unanimous ruling they issued in Brown v. Board of Education threw the weight of the Constitution fully behind the aspiration of social equality among the races. The possibilities of law as an engine of social justice seem to be encapsulated in the story of the decision — and in the many decades of resistance to its enforcement. Today, there are those who argue that the Court failed in its goal, since actual racial mixing in U.S. schools has declined steadily over the last 35 years. But in her new book, In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark (Oxford UP, 2011), Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow argues that the legacy of Brown should be viewed in a larger context. Neither a self-executing mandate for racial equality nor a futile rhetorical exercise, the decision was destined to become a lodestar for a wide variety of reformers in all areas of American society — and beyond. In a series of case studies, Dean Minow’s book reveals how Brown, the milestone in American jurisprudence, took on meanings the judges never envisioned, in the hands of advocates who, in 1954, nobody could have expected. Whatever else it was, the decision was that vital ingredient to be coupled with any kind of action: an idea whose time had come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Corruption in big-time college sports recently claimed another victim: Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel. Once regarded as a paragon of integrity, Tressel is now seen as one more example of a coach who recruited star players and built a successful program with the benefit of illegal gifts from boosters. Whether the result of Tressel’s deliberate disregard of rules or his neglect as coach, the scandal at Ohio State reminds us again that big-time college sports is deeply flawed. Big-time college sports, meaning major-conference football and men’s basketball, has its defenders and opponents. Some insist that it benefits both student athletes and the universities for which they play. Others mock the idea of the amateur “student-athletes” and view the programs themselves as for-profit enterprises that rake in tens of millions of dollars in television, ticket, and merchandise revenue. Both sides in the debate, and anyone who has a serious interest in college sports, will find much that is revealing and startling in Charles Clotfelter‘s book Big-Time Sports in American Universities (Cambridge University Press, 2011). The Z. Smith Reynolds Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics and Law at Duke University, Charlie easily combines the rigorous approach of a respected scholar with a knack for easy-to-understand explanation. Both experts and sports fans (and expert sports fans) will learn a lot about the economics of big-time college athletics from this book. Charlie investigates some of the basic justifications for multi-million-dollar programs–for example, that they pay for non-revenue-generating college sports, or that they increase student enrollments–to see if they bring the benefits their supporters claim. He also exposes the troubled finances at the foundation of most major programs, and the networks of influence that university leaders cultivate through access to luxury boxes and prime seats. And he offers an economic rationale for why coaches like Jim Tressel are led to break the rules. As he says in the interview, Charlie remains a fan of college sports. But he also calls for an honest acknowledgement of what big-time college sports really is: a lucrative entertainment business that is connected with higher education in a distant, but mutually dependent, relationship. That, he says, is the first step toward any reform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In his new book, Failing Liberty 101: How We Are Leaving Young Americans Unprepared for Citizenship in a Free Society, (Hoover Institution Press, 2011) William Damon, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, argues that we are failing to prepare today’s young people to be responsible American citizens. Damon, who is also the director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, shows that our disregard of civic and moral virtue as an educational priority is having a tangible effect on the attitudes, understanding, and behavior of large portions of the youth in our country today. In our interview, we discuss Howard Zinn, Michael Barone, political correctness, and the status of the American Dream. Read all about it, and more, in Damon’s thought-provoking new book. Please become a fan of “New Books in Public Policy” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

I fear that most people think that “history” is “the past” and that the one and the other live in books. But it just ain’t so. History is a story we tell about the past, or rather some small portion of it. The past itself is gone and cannot, outside science fiction, be revisited. And the histories in books are neither dead nor alive. They are zombies, endlessly repeating themselves, never having a new thought, never responding to anything you say. (Plato, by the way, is good on this subject.) In point of fact the only place that histories really live is in the minds of historians in the act of creation. In this context, the story is far from dead. Indeed, it hasn’t even been born. As historians read, research, and think, they make histories like a carpenter makes a table. Readers rarely get to see the historical craftsmen at their benches. All they see is the result. [pullquote]As historians read, research, and think, they make histories like a carpenter makes a table. Readers rarely get to see the historical craftsmen at their benches. All they see is the result.[/pullquote] Today we’ll have the opportunity to look into the history workshop with Abbott (“Tom”) Gleason. Tom has worked in academic history for nearly half a century. He has been everywhere, done everything, and faced every challenge a working historian can. And now he’s written a terrific memoir about his path, and that of historians of his generation in general: A Liberal Education (TidePool Press, 2010). I came away from the book with a renewed appreciation of the hold Zeitgeist has on historians and their work. Tom was raised in a cultural milieu (the liberal WASP establishment) that has now largely vanished. That peculiar, specific context had a powerful impact (by his own admission, both positive and negative) on his historical opinions and writing. It was interesting for me to see how Tom, as a conflicted, thoughtful son of privilege, negotiated Harvard of the 1950s, academia in the 1960s, and the rise (and relative decline) of the Russian studies industry in the post war decades. With eyes wide open, he recognizes the limitations of his Cold-War scholarly cohort, the ways in which he and his colleagues saw some things while being oblivious to others. Sometimes they got Russia right; sometimes they didn’t. But they were always on a quest to find the historical truth. Tom’s memoir shows just how difficult that truth is to find. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

I was a little kid during the Vietnam War. It was on the news all the time, and besides my uncle was fighting there. I followed it closely, or as closely as a little kid can. I never thought for a moment that “we” could lose. “We” were a great country run by good people; “they” were a little country run by bad people. I spent my time building models of American tanks, planes, and ships. I read a lot of “Sergeant Rock” and watched re-runs of “Combat.” My friends and I played “war” everyday after school. Given all this, you’ll understand that I was bewildered when “we” pulled out of Vietnam. How could “we” lose the war when “we” were bigger, better, and righter? It made no sense. All this came to mind as I read Andrew Donson terrific book Youth in the Fatherless Land: War Pedagogy, Nationalism, and Authority in Germany, 1914-1918 (Harvard UP, 2010). As Andrew points out, German children were taught that their nation was great, their cause was just, and their victory inevitable. Their heads were full of heroic tales of soldiers sacrificing themselves for the good of Germany, and they longed to fight for the Vaterland themselves. So when things began to come apart in 1917, Germany’s young people were deeply disappointed. They would not “get their chance.” Rather, they would suffer hunger, humiliation, and defeat. They had hard questions for their mothers, fathers, and the authorities. How could it happen? Who is at fault? And, most importantly, what should we do? As we know, they answered this final question in different and, as it turned out, radical ways. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

The vast majority of historians write history. Perhaps that’s good, as one should stick to what one knows. But there are historians who braves the waters of social and political criticism. One thinks of Arthur Schelsinger Jr., Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch, Robert Conquest, Richard Pipes, Eric Hobsbawm, E. P. Thompson, and more recently Tony Judt, Sean Wilentz and Victor Davis Hanson. Today I had the good fortune to speak with a historian who is virtually sure to enter the top rank of historian-public intellectuals, John H. Summers. Indeed, he already has. He’s published numerous probing essays on academic life, anarchism, the Left, sex scandals, anti-Americanism, the fate of newspapers, and, of course, many of the great American public intellectuals (he’s at work on a biography of C. Wright Mills). Summers does what all critics worth their salt do: comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Just read his remarkably insightful “All the Priviledged Must Have Prizes” about his experience teaching at Harvard. (Also, read the comments attending article, where current Harvard students unwittingly prove Summers’ main points). We must be grateful, then, that the folks at the Davis Group Press have elected to publish a collection of Summers’ finely crafted essays in Every Fury on Earth (2008). The book is challenging, thought-provoking, and courageous. John H. Summers does not blink. You will agree with some of the things he says, and you will disagree with others. That, of course, is the fun of it. BTW: If you have a relative or friend who is an academic, this book would make a perfect holiday gift. If you are an academic, indulge yourself and buy it. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

When you were in college, did you visit the health center? I did, several times. Did you ever wonder why there was a student health center? I didn’t. It seemed like a part of the college scenery, something that had “always” been there. Far from it, as Heather Prescott shows in her fascinating new book Student Bodies. The Influence of Student Health Services in American Society & Medicine (University of Michigan Press, 2007). Believe it or not, many very smart folks used to believe that college could hurt you, especially (though not exclusively) if you were a woman. And it wasn’t just that you could catch a nasty cold. Too much thinking, these folks said, might weaken the body and lead to a decline in fertility. That wouldn’t be good for the “race.” So some forward-thinking people began to consider ways in which the health of America’s sons and daughters might be protected while they studied. The result was a kind of early experiment in universal health care. In some ways it succeeded and in others it failed. But in either case it holds lessons for us (Americans, that is) as we think about how to fix our broken national health care system. We should thank Heather for teaching these lessons to us. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education