Thanks to @ProfSteveFuller (the Twitter handle of CSID Senior Fellow Steve Fuller) for pointing me toward this scathing review:
What Are Universities For? by Stefan Collini – review | Books | The Observer.
What universities are emphatically not for is to subsidise the self-pity of those they employ.
I’ll second that!
Peter Conrad’s review is a nasty ad hominem attack by a person who has not lifted a finger in defense of the Uk universities he has profited from. For a balanced review of Collini’s excellent book I suggest you post a link to the Economist. There are few people less prone to ‘self-pity’ than Collini. UK universities have been destroyed by would be monetarists, often imported from the US, and many of whom quit BP after that companies Gulf of Mexico fiasco.
A nation which leaves its universities in the care of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is at best ridiculous.
Here is the link to the review in The Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/21545983.
I have not yet read Collini’s book, nor do I know Professor Collini personally — so I cannot and will not make any comments about the quality of the book or about the character of its author.
I am likewise ignorant of Peter Conrad’s history of defending (or not) UK universities. So, I won’t comment on Professor Conrad, either.
Having now read both reviews, however, I stand by my original intent in posting the original review from The Observer: to suggest that those interested in the future of the university might want to read the book.
That said, I do not believe that protesting against any government’s ‘impact agenda’ is the best defense one can give of the university. Universities turn inward (and ask for money to do so) at their own risk.