Book Review

Canada and the United States

Children born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony often were named to honor such virtues as Faith and Prudence. Evidently, the practice did not extend to newly founded institutions. Modesty was not Harvard's middle name in 1636—nor over the next four centuries. Historians Morton Keller and Phyllis Keller analyze archival papers from 1933 to 2000 to show how modernity and meritocracy became parts of Harvard University's signature while modesty remained conspicuously absent.	1
The co-authors fulfill their pledge to provide a "candid portrait of America's greatest university through seven decades of dramatic change." Talent, wealth, and heritage combined with keen financial planning understandably made it hard for Harvard to be humble. Superlatives abound in its ability to attract students, faculty, and donors. During the presidential tenures of James Bryant Conant, Nathan Pusey, and Derek Bok, Harvard avoided complacence.	2
Some superlatives are suspect. For example, the book jacket contends this is the "first comprehensive history of a modern American university." Harvard may be the greatest, but it is not always first. The Kellers' work was preceded by Rebecca Lowen's Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford (1997). Other contenders include Richard Freeland's Academia's Golden Age: Universities in Massachusetts, 1945–1970 (1992) and Roger Geiger's Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Research Universities Since World War II (1993). A gracious, accurate gesture would have been to acknowledge Clarence Mohr and Joseph Gordon, Tulane: The Emergence of a Modern University, 1945–1980 (2001), and Henry Lesesne's A History of the University of South Carolina, 1940 to 2000 (2001).	. . .