[Introduction to "cluster" of articles on the American university]
During the half-century since World War II, American colleges and universities have been education's Emerald City, not only for Americans but for millions of others who have followed the yellow brick road from abroad. No matter what ups and downs have afflicted the economy, no matter that the stunning mediocrity of our primary and secondary schools has been recognized as a national crisis--through all this and more, higher education has grown in scale, in wealth, in allure and, at least until the very recent past, in stature.
The corporation is downsizing and going international. Government is being reinvented, even disinvented. Unions are disappearing. Churches are turning themselves into spiritual shopping malls, offering something for everyone. The family has fractured or recombined. Radical change is the order of the day in the life of American institutions--except in academia.
In last autumn's barely defeated referendum, supporters of sovereignty for Quebec claimed a "distinct society" as the strongest justification for severing most ties with the rest of Canada. The author explores that difference in the character of Quebec City.
It is hard to think of a phrase whose revival in the language was as welcome, and whose subsequent history has proved quite so disappointing, as "public intellectual."
When a wrecker's ball divides the facade of an old building, or a switch is thrown to ignite efficient charges at its core, you see how the physical work of years can be undone instantly. There's less show to the death of a tradition. It's hard to fix the moment, or sequence of moments, at which breath goes out of it and decay takes hold of the remains.
"The Strange Silence of Political Theory" by Jeffrey C. Isaac, in Political Theory (Nov. 1995), SAGE Publications, 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, Calif. 91320.
"Lincoln's First Love" by Mark E. Neely, Jr., in Civil War Times (Nov.-Dec. 1995), P.O. Box 8200, Harrisburg, Pa. 17105-8200.
"Adventures in Wonderland: A Scholar in Washington" by Diane Ravitch, in The American Scholar (Autumn 1995), Phi Beta Kappa Society, 1811 Q St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009.