I would add that there is only very rarely real scholarly substance to reviews. There used to be, but that's over. This need not be the case. A good editor can help make prose work for a wide readership.
Smart stuff, cuz. I think the preferences of individual editors matter greatly at the BR as they do at other papers and magazines. A now retired editor there probably got all my books assigned to reviewers. If he hadn't liked my work, who knows if they would have been covered?
I realize this is a stretch, but I’d love to hear you on the larger issue of the insiderism of the profession.
Just the various many ways in which for those lucky enough to be at elite institutions all kinds of scarce benefits come one’s way: fellowships prizes election to elite societies, and in affect everyone else in the profession is very much on the outside looking in.
And it’s difficult from the very beginning because every aspiring young person who is passionate about a field knows that this artificial selection begins at the tender age of eighteen with where one goes to college. One is then told at twenty
-two, that one should choose a university and a department for grad school rather than opting for an outstanding scholar in a less elite university or department and so on and so on.
It’s enough to make us wonder whether or not there’s anything remotely approaching a meritocracy in terms of rewarding the best, the brightest, the most productive, the most important.
This is a very big subject, of course. I might try to write something about it at some point. I don't think the profession is quite as closed off as you suggest, but it's certainly nothing like a pure meritocracy. What would a genuine academic meritocracy look like? How would selection of personnel and allocation of resources work? The French have wrestled with these questions for a long time, albeit with far fewer resources than are available in the US.
I realise that the long view suggests progress. At least on the level of who gets into these elite institutions. I'm just reading the new bio of Vann Woodward and the lives of our elders were very different re. the job market, fellowships etc. Such a closed circle.
I'm sure you face this all the time: you have two fellowships to award for incoming PH.D. students. Four kids from the Ivies, another few from fine Big Ten schools, then terrific kids from Alabama or Wyoming or God knows where. You know the letter writers for the Ivy kids, the others you know less well or really not at all. How do you make that Rawlsian move to the veil of ignorance?
It's tricky! And you can't just move to the veil of ignorance. The kids from the Ivies don't just have letters from people I know. They have taken advantage of all the resources available at the Ivies, and the difference in resources is massive, in terms of the kids of courses they will have taken, the training in writing, the ability to do original research. They will be, on average, well advanced compared to the kids from Alabama or Wyoming. So you have to try to make allowances, but at the same time it usually amounts to making a bet on someone whose ultimate potential is much harder to evaluate than an Ivy League competitor.
so true. It's hard to get inside the room. We have a colleague who recommends that the Wyoming kid do an M.A. at an upgrade school, see if they're insane enough and talented enough to want to continue, wise enough and lucky enough to get good coaching, and go from there...
I would add that there is only very rarely real scholarly substance to reviews. There used to be, but that's over. This need not be the case. A good editor can help make prose work for a wide readership.
Another great commentary
Smart stuff, cuz. I think the preferences of individual editors matter greatly at the BR as they do at other papers and magazines. A now retired editor there probably got all my books assigned to reviewers. If he hadn't liked my work, who knows if they would have been covered?
on *very* rare occasions the NYTBR does manage to publish sharpy negative reviews. This brilliant review, from a decade ago, came to my attention recently: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html. (not on a history book, but worth reading!)
Hah! Thanks for this.
David
Continue with the muckraking please.
I realize this is a stretch, but I’d love to hear you on the larger issue of the insiderism of the profession.
Just the various many ways in which for those lucky enough to be at elite institutions all kinds of scarce benefits come one’s way: fellowships prizes election to elite societies, and in affect everyone else in the profession is very much on the outside looking in.
And it’s difficult from the very beginning because every aspiring young person who is passionate about a field knows that this artificial selection begins at the tender age of eighteen with where one goes to college. One is then told at twenty
-two, that one should choose a university and a department for grad school rather than opting for an outstanding scholar in a less elite university or department and so on and so on.
It’s enough to make us wonder whether or not there’s anything remotely approaching a meritocracy in terms of rewarding the best, the brightest, the most productive, the most important.
This is a very big subject, of course. I might try to write something about it at some point. I don't think the profession is quite as closed off as you suggest, but it's certainly nothing like a pure meritocracy. What would a genuine academic meritocracy look like? How would selection of personnel and allocation of resources work? The French have wrestled with these questions for a long time, albeit with far fewer resources than are available in the US.
I realise that the long view suggests progress. At least on the level of who gets into these elite institutions. I'm just reading the new bio of Vann Woodward and the lives of our elders were very different re. the job market, fellowships etc. Such a closed circle.
I'm sure you face this all the time: you have two fellowships to award for incoming PH.D. students. Four kids from the Ivies, another few from fine Big Ten schools, then terrific kids from Alabama or Wyoming or God knows where. You know the letter writers for the Ivy kids, the others you know less well or really not at all. How do you make that Rawlsian move to the veil of ignorance?
It's tricky! And you can't just move to the veil of ignorance. The kids from the Ivies don't just have letters from people I know. They have taken advantage of all the resources available at the Ivies, and the difference in resources is massive, in terms of the kids of courses they will have taken, the training in writing, the ability to do original research. They will be, on average, well advanced compared to the kids from Alabama or Wyoming. So you have to try to make allowances, but at the same time it usually amounts to making a bet on someone whose ultimate potential is much harder to evaluate than an Ivy League competitor.
so true. It's hard to get inside the room. We have a colleague who recommends that the Wyoming kid do an M.A. at an upgrade school, see if they're insane enough and talented enough to want to continue, wise enough and lucky enough to get good coaching, and go from there...