A History of American Higher Education by John R. Thelin

This book gives a broad overview of the history of higher education in the United States from its colonial beginnings until 2000. It does a really nice job teasing out some of the nuances, especially in terms of the relationship between state and federal governments and institutions of higher education--what does it mean to be a public institution? what were the results of the Morrill Land Grant act? It also incorporates the history of women and people of color in education into its history, rather than isolating these groups in short, separate chapters. Thelin always has his eye on two goals: present an honest history that really looks at the changes in higher education (rather than single-mindedly valorizing the past as better and bemoaning the present) and show how we can learn from the past (successes and mistakes) to make higher education serve the country more successfully than ever. At times Thelin repeats the same anecdote, and the book aims at a big-picture rather than an in-depth account, but this is a great introduction to the history of higher education in the United States.

The American College and University: A History by Frederick Randolph

This book gives a wide-ranging history of higher education in the United States from its colonial beginnings to the 1960s (when the book was written). It works admirably to show the broad types of changes in higher education--its forms and priorities. Reading this book makes this much clear: while it's easy to look at the challenges facing higher education today and bemoan how much better things were in the past, higher education never faced a clear or easy road. Instead, its history is a long history of compromises and attempts to finance something that many people want but no one wants to pay for. While the book is good on broad strokes, it's less good at looking beyond the history of white men: education for women and education for African-Americans each have only one short chapter.

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa

This monograph argues that American college students are not learning very much in college. Given the rising costs of higher education, and the increasing sense that a college education will open up possibilities to students, it's important to address this lack--although the authors hesitate to call it a crisis, because the US higher education system is not in danger of collapsing. The authors' conclusions are mostly based on a test called the College Learning Assessment, which was administered to students at twenty-four universities at the beginning of their freshman year (2005) and the end of their sophomore year of study (2007). The authors then used the data to assess how much the students learned. The book accounts for a wide variety of variables. It seems that the variable over which individuals have control (as opposed to, say, whether their parents went to college) is the types of courses they select: students tended to learn more in courses that required at least 40 pages of reading a week and at least 20 pages of writing over the course of the semester. I think this book brings up a lot of problems in higher education, and it motivated me to look more closely at course structure. I think a larger sample size (more universities) and studying a larger range of classes (not just the one cohort) would help reinforce the study's claims. I am also not entirely convinced that this test alone is a good measure of how much students have learned (though I admit that it is a step towards a solution of a tough problem).

Victorian Literature and the Victorian State: Character and Governance in a Liberal Society by Lauren Goodlad

This book argues that many of the contradictions on topics such as social welfare, poverty, and the government's ideal role in society inherent in Victorian viewpoints come from the fact that "Victorian Britain was a liberal society"--and that this liberalism cut in two ways to both promote freedom and to insist on state aid as a means of achieving social health (vii). While Goodlad sees a Foucauldian perspective as useful in untangling the different strains of thought in Victorian Society, she finds later Foucault more useful than the genealogical approach of Discipline and Punish. Many of Goodlad's readings focus on pastorship--that is, someone (usually middle class) guiding the poor to better character and better living. She reads Dickens (Oliver Twist, Bleak House, and Our Mutual Friend), Frances Trollope, Anthony Trollope, George Gissing, and H.G. Wells among others. These readings arrive in conjunction with a careful social history: Goodlad does a nice job of showing the relationship between the literature, its authors' opinions, and the culture in which it was produced. I found her reading of the educational system in Our Mutual Friend particularly helpful. While this book is out of my field (and out of my usual mode of theoretical approach), I found its argument to be cogent and reasonably well supported.

New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual Life in New York City from 1750 to the Beginnings of Our Own Time by Thomas Bender

This book gives a comprehensive intellectual history of New York City. Bender contends that intellectual life in New York has always been different from Europe--so if we look for European structures, we'll be disappointed. Instead, he traces three types of intellectual involvement: civil, literary, and academic. He contends none of these structures has been completely successful in developing intellectual life, and that a city that could embrace all three would be ideal. In this book, Bender thinks a lot about the relations between intellectual life and democratic society, ultimately contending that intellectual life has to be open to all and a vibrant part of city culture for the optimal situation. I found this book very diligent in providing convincing evidence to support its arguments. The three trends are very clearly defined, but the book could trace their relationships to each other a little more clearly.

What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller

While the narrator of this book, Barbara Covett, thinks she's explaining (or possibly exonerating) her friend Sheba Hart's affair with a student at the school where they both worked, she's actually revealing her own obsessions and ticks. It's a portrait of a lonely woman, at times quite moving, and at others frankly disturbing, and a demonstration of how someone who feels sure of herself and her actions comes off as clueless to others. I enjoyed this book, especially because of its unreliable narrator. A haunting read. Booker shortlisted, 2003.

The Right-Hand Shore by Christopher Tilghman

This book gives the history of a plantation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland as its owner decides whether to leave it to a distant cousin who seems interested in pursuing a life elsewhere. I found the mystery wonderfully handled: even though it hangs over the entire story, it doesn't dominate the smaller set-pieces. In each vignette, we learn a little more about life on the plantation and the tragedies that the cultural and economic institutions cause to the inhabitants of this world. I'm definitely going to look at Tilghman's other work.

James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Ketcham

This biography gives a thorough account of Madison's life from his birth to his death. It covers matters both personal and political with a thorough approach: it has all the necessary background to make sense of the political events and it covers not only Madison's opinions and actions but also the philosophical basis for his actions. The book quotes heavily from Madison's letters and writings. My biggest problem was with its organization: it lumped all his personal affairs (most notably his marriage to Dolley Payne Todd and his retirement to Monticello during John Adams's terms as president) into one chapter that didn't fit entirely chronologically. Otherwise this book offers a thorough and entertaining view of Madison's life.

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

I enjoyed this book which imagines the story of the first Wampanoag graduate of Harvard (Caleb) from the perspective of a minister's daughter (Bethia) who befriends him. The figure of Caleb is historical, but Brooks admits in a note that she has imagined his character. I particularly liked the book's attention to religion and the role of religion in the early settlement of New England, and the book's interest in education: especially in who gets it and in under what conditions. Finally, the book paid a lot of fruitful attention to what a cross-cultural friendship might look like. Another satisfying read from this author.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

I enjoyed reading this book the second time even more than I liked it the first time. The story takes place in two times: a present at the Wayside Inn, where we quickly learn we're hearing Kvothe, a man whose story has already become mythic and who has disguised himself as the simple innkeeper Kote, tell his story his way. The story is an entertaining bildungsroman, and I was much more able to get over Kvothe's early ban from the Archives this time around. I also enjoyed the drug-addicted Draccus interlude more. I am really waiting to hear what becomes of the Chandrian....

A Home Elsewhere: Reading African American Classics in the Age of Obama by Robert Stepto

This book looks back at the African American canon and contrasts scenes in writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Frederick Douglass to scenes in Obama's Dreams of My Father. It's perhaps not surprising that these scenes are often educational--for example, set in a school--because of Stepto's earlier thesis, that African American literature is driven by freedom and literacy narratives. While the book offers persuasive readings, and the comparisons to Obama are interesting, it doesn't have the heft, examples, or theoretical grounding to be a major work.