Academic historians, having abandoned researching statesmanship and economic development for the Foucauldian sketching of marginalized groups, have torpedoed the discipline’s relevance to government and society. University professors can no longer synthesize or teach, but only present their abstruse pursuits. Although the trade holds too many important historical topics have been exhausted, one can inevitably discover new materials and so revised perspective (somewhat along the lines of Banner’s Ever-changing Past, albeit the latter seems more favorably inclined to sociocultural avenues). Through his own career, the author makes a persuasive case but routinely betrays conceit of unrecognized brilliance. A New Deal-Great Society liberal, he sees modern topics such as the Vietnam War in predictable terms.

Also of interest:
• The study of imperialism should entail the economic basis of hegemony, the administration of conquered territory, sources of resistance, military and naval factors, and the role of decision making process
• Camille Paglia (one of many with whom the author compares himself) first identified the cult of Foucault as reducing all events to relationships of power, indicated by language as interpreted by post facto critics.
• On his second appointment at Williams: ‘Political correctness was omnipresent, spread in a steady stream of emails to the whole campus from the dean’s office’ (p. 363) Also: ‘All
n— must die’ was revealed to him as a black student’s agit-prop by another student
• Training is how to do a task, education is how to think about the right tasks