This post is the text of the preface I wrote for the Chinese translation of my book, A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of the American System of Higher Education. The translators are Professor Sun Bi and research assistant Liu Zitai from the School of Education at South China Normal University. It will be published … Continue reading Preface to the Chinese Edition of A Perfect Mess
This post is an op-ed I published in 2018 on the online international opinion site, Project Syndicate. The original is hidden behind a paywall; here are PDFs in English, Spanish, and Arabic. It's a brief essay about what is distinctive about the American system of higher education, drawn from my book, A Perfect Mess: The … Continue reading The Exceptionalism of American Higher Education
This post is a piece I published in Quartz in 2017. Here’s a link to the original. It’s an effort to explore the distinctively populist character of American higher education, drawing on my book, A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher Education. The idea is that a key to understanding the strong public support that … Continue reading How Football Helped Make US Universities Great
This post is an essay by Jennifer Morton that recently appeared in the online magazine Aeon. Here's a link to the original. I have been posting every Monday and Thursday on this blog for four years, but I feel the need to stick in this post out of sequence because the election date is so near, … Continue reading Jennifer Morton — The Specter of Insecurity
This essay by Steve Lagerfeld was published in 2021 in Hedgehog Review. Here's a link to the original. This brief piece is a striking reflection on the evolving meaning of privilege over time. In the current period of meritocratic privilege, people acquire status by getting exclusive degrees. This gives them the right to high level … Continue reading Steve Lagerfeld — A Different Sense of Privilege
This post is a reprint of a piece I published in Quartz in 2017. Here’s a link to the original. It’s an effort to explore the distinctively populist character of American higher education. The idea is that a key to understanding the strong public support that US colleges and universities have managed to generate is their ability to reach beyond … Continue reading Nobel Prizes Are Great, but Football Is Why US Universities Rule
This post is an essay by Francis Fukuyama in the latest issue of American Purpose. Here's a link to the original. It's part of a series of pieces he wrote for the magazine in defense of the Deep State, the specialized bureaucracies that allow the modern state to function effectively while political leaders come and … Continue reading Francis Fukuyama — Balancing Bureaucratic Autonomy and Political Control: Covid Lessons
This post is a reprint of a piece I published in Quartz in 2017. Here’s a link to the original. It’s an effort to explore the distinctively populist character of American higher education. The idea is that a key to understanding the strong public support that US colleges and universities have managed to generate is their ability to reach beyond … Continue reading Nobel Prizes Are Great, But Football Is Why American Universities Dominate the Globe
This post is the text of the preface I just wrote for the Chinese translation of my book, A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of the American System of Higher Education. The translators are Professor Sun Bi and research assistant Liu Zitai from the School of Education at South China Normal University. It will be … Continue reading Preface to the Chinese Edition of A Perfect Mess
This post is a tribute to the Normans and how they came to shape modern Europe. It draws primarily from the book The Normans: From Raiders to Kings by Lars Brownworth and also from a recent essay in Unherd by Ed West. The Normans were Vikings who in the ninth century conquered a piece of … Continue reading How the Normans Shaped Modern Europe
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 