The Pleasures of Academe: A Celebration & Defense of Higher Education

By James Axtell

Book Overview

In this timely book, historian James Axtell offers a compelling defense of higher education. Drawing on national statistics, broad-ranging scholarship, and delightful anecdotes, Axtell describes the professorial work cycle, the evolution of scholarship in the past three decades, the importance of "habitual scholarship," and the best ways to judge a university. He persuasively confronts the critics of higher education, arguing that they have perpetuated misunderstandings of tenure, research, teaching, curricular change, and professorial politics.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803210493
• ISBN13: 9780803210493
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Unp - Nebraska
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 1.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A wonderful insight into higher education

This is one of the most enjoyable books I have read in some time. James Axtell is a highly accomplished professor of history, having taught initially at Yale but for most of his career at William and Mary. This book, in a delightfully personal way, provides keen insights into the life of a university professor as well as a number of issues about higher education. As one myself who has always held university faculty in high regard, I have always been interested in exactly what they do and how they do it. This book explains what that life consists of -- the research, the scholarship, the writing, the speaking and other extracurricular activities, administrative duties, student counseling, and of course teaching. It is a perfect opportunity to live vicariously the experience of being a university professor in the humanities. The book also has fascinating insights into higher education generally, which in my view remain very timely. Finally, there are some personal elements of the book that are very interesting. The author earned his doctorate at Cambridge, where graduate students are permitted to compete in athletics. He was an accomplished long jumper, triple jumper, and basketball player, and his conversational recount of being a scholar-athlete is very engaging. The book conveys a warmth, humility,and thoughtfulness on the part of the author that make him a delightful companion as one reads this wonderful book. I highly recommend it.