Review
Robert Nisbet accuses universities of having betrayed themselves. Over the centuries they earned the respect of society by attempting to remain faithful to what he terms "the academic dogma", the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The measure of a university's greatness and of the stature of an individual scholar was determined not by the immediate usefulness of the work done, but by how much it contributed to scholarship, learning, and teaching. American universities abandoned this ideal after World War II by welcoming onto their campuses academic entrepreneurs engaged in the 'higher capitalism", the highly profitable sale of knowledge. This practice has resulted in the greatest change in the structure and values of the university since their founding as guilds in the Middle Ages. It may also become responsible for their eventual demise as centers of learning. The Degradation Of The Academic Dogma is a signal work of scholarship and deserves the widest possible readership among academicians, scholars, politicians, and the general public. -- Midwest Book Review
About the Author
Robert A. Nisbet (1913-1996) was Albert Schweiter Professor Emeritus of the Humanities at Columbia University. He was also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. After retiring from Columbia he worked for eight years at the American Enterprise Institute.
