Another book review by Theodore Dalrymple (writing under his real name, Anthony Daniels) is available over at The New Criterion. This time, the good doctor dissects the latest published gem of inconsequential mediocrity from the fulcrum of all that is glorious in Western higher education: Harvard University.

According to the author’s acknowledgments, however, she is indebted to approximately one “scholar, activist or other book lover” for every two pages of her 170-page text, so perhaps I am unduly harsh: there are more of such scholars than I think. (Surely it is time for someone to undertake Acknowledgment Studies? It would teach us a great deal about the psychosocial history of academe and the development of the concept of a research community in the humanities. It takes a village to write a book.)