Lonely at the Top

The Price of Excellence: Universities in Conflict during the Cold War Era, by Jacob Neusner and Noam M. M. Neusner (Continuum, 252 pp., $24.95)

IN 1950 Jacob Neusner entered what seemed to him an enchanted garden. “To set foot on a university campus in those days opened the way to paradise,” he writes with a sanguinity that those who followed can only imagine. This deeply engaging new book, half memoir, half history, recounts the academy’s trials and aspirations over the last fifty years as seen through the eyes of one who had a front-row seat for almost the entire period.

About the Author

Tracy Lee Simmons

Tracy Lee Simmons is the author of Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin.

The Price of Excellence: Universities in Conflict during the Cold War Era, by Jacob Neusner and Noam M. M. Neusner (Continuum, 252 pp., $24.95)

IN 1950 Jacob Neusner entered what seemed to him an enchanted garden. “To set foot on a university campus in those days opened the way to paradise,” he writes with a sanguinity that those who followed can only imagine. This deeply engaging new book, half memoir, half history, recounts the academy’s trials and aspirations over the last fifty years as seen through the eyes of one who had a front-row seat for almost the entire period.