2 comments about Africa on Six Wheels: A Semester on Safari.

1. I found the book, Africa on Wheels: A semester on safari by Betty Levitov, quite informative on contemporary social issues in Africa. The author took 13 students, male and female, of Doane College, Nebraska, USA, to eastern and southern Africa in 2002. They spent three months touring and learning about interesting landscapes, plants, animals, and socialising with local people. The group travelled in a van with six wheels, which was driven by an Australian with a highly fragmented and apparently fabled biography. At the end of their African travel and adventure, commonly called safari, every student reported that the experience had profoundly deepened his or her understanding of African people and life in general. And, in the words of the author, 'in spite of many dangers of traveling in Africa, no student died or became pregnant.'
   
   The author provided interesting background information to the places they visited, and described local people and individuals objectively and with affection. Unlike certain foreign writers, whose books are a catalog of the ugly and the comical in Africa, Levitov presented her observations fairly and objectively. Of course, she discussed the problem of poverty that is prevalent in most developing countries.
   
   I have a few criticisms on the book. While the author frequently mentioned taking numerous photographs, there is no single photo in the book to help the reader connect text to image. The cover of the book contains an illustration of a vehicle and a scenery, which do not match any description in the book. Shouldn't a book of travel and adventure contain show the reader some images that the author saw? Also, I felt the author dwelt on trivial musings of the students for far too long, and memorable events were too far in-between. Nevertheless, the book is very informative, and I strongly recommend it to any reader seeking objective and honest information on contemporary social life in Africa.
   Leo Juma, Riverside, California



2. I love reading travel books and I am especially interested in Africa. I have unfortunately been disappointed in the past with travel books about Africa written in a depressing or patronizing manner. Although plagued with many problems, Africa is full of people with hopes, dreams and talents. This book brings out the positive and best aspects of Africa and the people that live there without being unrealistic about the challenges they face.
   
   Overall this book was a very pleasant suprise. It is written by a professor who takes her students on a semester to Africa. She writes in a very honest, humorous and non-preachy way about the students, her travels and everyone's reaction to the places they visit and the people they meet as well as her experiences teaching and living in a communal household. She is a good story teller and each chapter has one main point and it is made in a very interesting and poignant way.
   
   I really enjoyed this book and found myself learning much from her insights and also learning about Africa as well. Out of all the travel books I have read "Africa on Six Wheels" is definitely one of my favorites!

3 comments about The Ghost of Scootertrash Past.

1. The Ghost Of Scootertrash Past: Memories & Rants Of A Longrider is the personal testimony, stories, rants, and insights of Mark Tiger Edmonds, a motorcycling professor who cruises the road with a Scrabble game and Oreo cookies in his motorcycle's saddle bags. A flavorful, unique, and often surprising memoir of dirt roads, Zen and the art of motorcycle riding, the hazards of camping, and so much more, The Ghost Of Scootertrash Past is a thoroughly attention engaging read and recommended for motorcycle buffs and Americana enthusiasts.



2. I read this book before reading Edmonds' first one, "Longrider". Both books are stories, vignettes, of his experiences putting more than a million miles on two wheels riding the US and Canada. While both books are enjoyable and the various stories engaging, I found "Ghost of Scootertrash Past" a better read with some caveats. I quickly became annoyed with his poser misuse of grammar. It just comes across as phony. The stories in "Longrider" were more disjointed but his voice more authentic. There is an art to story telling, and Edmonds does it well. Now I would like to try some of the roads/rides he describes.



3. 
   Now maybe I'm not the the best person for putting out an unbiased opinion on this book, seein' as how I actually make an appearance or two within the pages (I'm the one of those who picks & patches him & the bike up a couple of times - made it to Tennessee to pick him up in his truck in about 11 hours).
   
   But I'm not tapping away here to write a review, but rather to clear some things up:
   
   1) He really does talk like that - it's called vernacular - they're called colloquialisms - it's not "poseur misuse of grammar", it's legitimate misuse of grammar that he was more careful about in the first book - not knowing how poseur book critics would take it.
   
   2) He really is a professor of English (at my alma mater) - the colloquialisms don't get in the way, as he doesn't use them while grading papers of inconsiderate, psycho, crapweasel children (though the fact that it gets straight under the skin of administrators is a bonus).
   
   3) Such of his stories as I'm personally able to speak to (having known him for only 15 years) are the gods-honest truth - I've patched too much fiberglass for them to be anything else.
   
   
   
   4) Forget what I said about being biased - it's a great book - go buy one for yourself and a couple for your friends right now.
   
   ....Go on, what are you still reading for? I mean it - right now!

5 comments about Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener The Father of Cybernetics.

1. When I first saw the title "Dark Hero of ...." I had to chuckle with the image it engendered of Norbert, dressed in a floppy Batman constume, goutee, thick glassed over his mask which of course hid his identy waddling down the corridors of Building 2, fighting crime in Tauberian Theorems.
   
   The authors wrote a magnificent opus on a great man who, in today's environment, would have been classified as a victim of child abuse. Their facts and presentation carried me back to that era. But, I am uncomfortable with the intensionality that the term 'Dark' might leave in the reader so grant me the right to give an added facet.
   
   
   As a senior at MIT during the 1959-1960 semesters I had the honor working with Weiner. Up front, my review arises from an unabashed gratitude and affection for a man whose influence and help were instrumental for all the good things that later transpired in my life over the last 45 years.
   
   One day in the fall of 1959 I was walking near Weiner's office after having come out of Dirk Struik's office from a discussion of an item in the Advanced Tensor Analysis course I was taking from him. Just as I was passing by his office the classical Norbert Weiner yelled out " young man, can you come in and finish the calculations on the board". Honestly, I was totally naive and did not know anything about him except having seen him in the corridors.
   
   "Sure" I said. As I entered the office he walked out. There on the dusty chalk board were a facsimile of a spread sheet, with rows of numbers scribbled across the board. I could not admit that I had no idea what the numbers represented, let alone what I was to do. Ego is a wonderful goad for creative problem solving. Seeing a number that looked like the sine of 30 degrees I quickly deciphered that the alternating lines were discrete values of the sine function, the parallel lines were filled with some varying numbers from a seemingly smooth function, and the next line looked like some multiplication/ addition of both. Norman Levinson's course in Complex Anaylsis came to the rescue. Weiner was performing a discrete fast Fourier Transform. Ten minutes later Weiner came in and saw that I had almost completed the spread sheet.
   
   Looking over his glasses he asked "What are you doing here?". "Helping you, Professor" I responded, startled. "Can you come back tomorrow for some more work?" "Sure"
   
   It turned out that he was perfroming a spectral analysis on a section of EEG readings Dr. John Barlow had given Weiner.
   I eventually had to hand read the red graph and number the amplitudes. The picture appears in CYBERNTETICS 2nd edition.
   
   One Saturday he directed me to "sit down and write". After a few lines I had the timerity to inquire what the heck was I doing.
   His answer: "I'm dictating the upgrade to my book CYBRENETICS". My mistake was to inform him that I could touch type. Zap! Three hours later I threw in the towel. From then on, after math classes I would be sitting typing and learning more ideas and mathematical insight than any of the past 3.5 years. Note, no word processor, no electric type writer. The old fashioned finger toughening for Karate thrust kind.
   
   My many mistaken sheets were then handed over to Weiner's secretary who produced a finished draft.
   
   When the galleys came out I, among many others, reviewed and corrected them.
   
   Weiner informed me that he considered "his students as colleagues" and he gave me the honor and respect that it entailed.
   I noticed over the years that the truly great and self assured, including Doc Edgerton in Electric Engineering, treated with respect f those 'under' them. The not so great and their undeserved pomposity are legion in all walks of life.
   
   A few vignettes of his Puckish sense of humor which were seen quite often are in order.
   
   One Saturday, Weiner, who had to check his urine for sugar, came into the office to check it. "Good, all is well", he smiled, "Here, take it and dispose of it".
   
   My response was as brash as anything I had ever done "Prof. Weiner, I have the deepest respect for you. I have had my rump fall asleep while tying your manuscript for hours. But, you take your G.. D....d sample yourelf"
   
   Weiner burst out in laughter "Well, I tried." and waddled off. I just keeled over with laughter.
   
   Weiner was subject to many folks who came to 'worship at his feet' and try to have him help on hair brained schemes.
   Once such soul came in one day and proceded to blather. Norbert rose, took him by the elbow with a "I know someone who will really be able to help you", and dumped into Struick's office. From across the hall we heard Struik's Dutch yelling, while chasing the man out. Then, flushed faced, Dirk leaned into the office and hissed "Norbert, stop dumping your garbage into my office!" , and popped out. Norbert broke into a loud chuckle, looke at me, and just smiled.
   
   
   
   
   A few years later Mrs. Weiner called and told me that Norbert was in Mass.General as he had fallen down and done serious damge to himself. I overcame my deep antipathy to hospitals and took my self over.
   She informed me that the Professor was in a bad way and Prof. Lee had just left, totally depressed at seeing his mentors state. She told me not to stay too long but to see if I could get him to respond.
   Entering his room, I heard Norbert moaning, leaning away from the door. How the wonderful inspiration came to me I have never figured out.
   
   As I walked to his bed , in my most stentorian voice, I said "What 14 carat plated phoney!" He moaned, tried to turn, and went back to moaning.
   "There is nothing wrong with you. I know you well enough to know that you faking it, just to avoid being drafted".
   
   Much as he tried not to, he let out a loud laugh. I continued "I bet you are pestering all the doctors like Barlow, that Fourier Anaylysis and Tauberian Theorems can solve all medical problems. They have to listen to you!"
   
   At that he slowly sat up, reached for his glasses and then went into a long story of how indeed he had such ideas, etc.
   
   Mrs. Weiner was clearly taken aback at my brashness and when Norbert sat up she did not know what to do. While happily pontificating Norbert said "Margaret, light up a cigar for me". She lit up one his 'stinkies', handed it to him, and Norber was on his way. Soon after Frau Professor chased me out but I was elated beyond words.
   
   That was the last time I ever saw Weiner but this wonderful book captured so many facets of this rare, great human,
   
   My gratitude. I was there
   
   John C. Kotelly MIT '60



2. Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman have put an immense effort into writing an exhaustive review of Norbert Wiener, one of the great geniuses of the last century. Wiener spoke an ungodly number of languages, got his PhD from Harvard at the age of 19, made immense contributions to mathematics, biology, computer sciences, medicine, political thought - even in McCarthy's heyday he had no qualms about speaking his mind -, etc, etc.
   
   As generally is the case with biographies of Wunderkinder, the authors ultimately are not equal to their subjects, not for lack of effort, but for lack of having the intellect necessary to understand and do justice to an über-prodigy. And so it is with this book; rather than to analyze and judge Wiener's various accomplishments and beliefs, which range from phenomenal scientific accomplishments to believing that he had been reincarnated, the authors prefer to "tell it as it was" and let the reader draw his or her conclusions.
   
   Despite these inevitable limitations, this book is well worth reading, albeit thoughtfully.



3. Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Nortbert Wiener the Father of Cybernetics tells of an ex-child prodigy and MIT mathematician who founded cybernetics - and then spent the rest of his life warning the world of the consequences of the new technologies he helped foster. Surprisingly, his works and his warnings are relatively unknown today - despite the fact many of his concerns and predictions came true. Dark Hero of the Information Age recounts his life and discoveries - and the consequences of his discoveries.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



4. From a historical and economic and sociological perspective, this book is utter propaganda.
   
   For example, from page 340, "To date, India's engineers and entrepreneurs have had the most success following the path Wiener chartered for their country's advancement, and while their numbers are still small compared to the whole of their population, they are reaping many of the benefits Weiner envisioned without the drawbacks of older models of industrialization."
   
   WHAT A F--KING JOKE!!! I'm dying of laughter!
   
   There is categorically no relationship between India's newfound economic success and Norbert Wiener. None. Na-da. Nothing. Zip-0!
   
   And that was just a single sentence from this text. Just imagine what else lurks in 400 pages of writing from what are two absolute fools. Flo conway and Jim siegelman are the stupidest writers ever!



5. _Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener The Father of Cybernetics_ by the researchers Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, who had previously written on cults and fundamentalism, is a fascinating biography of an important figure in the history of the last century who played an important role in heralding in the coming age of information. Norbert Wiener (1894 - 1964) was a fascinating individual and a man of many talents who is perhaps best remembered as both a mathematician and the father of the science of cybernetics. Wiener was a highly eccentric individual who had been renowned as a child prodigy in his youth and studied at Tufts and Harvard from the ages of 11 to 14, eventually earning his Ph.D. at age 18. Following his early years, Wiener became an academic originally focusing on philosophy and mathematics, though taking a more applied bent towards mathematical research than some of his contemporaries such as G. H. Hardy, who routinely castigated him for this. Wiener's career took off at MIT where he developed the science of cybernetics, which was to play such an important role in furthering engineering, biological, and social sciences, as well as playing the role of an astute commentator on the role of automation. Cybernetics (a term derived from the Greek for "steersman"), the creation of Norbert Wiener, was an essential science in the understanding of feedback and control systems. Wiener continued to develop his theories following the publication of his first book on the subject and in particular examined the role of automation among workers. Wiener also was able to prove an inspiration for several important engineering projects focusing on such things as the human brain, artificial intelligence, and the development of prostheses for amputees. Wiener's ideas played an important role in the United States, but with the advent of the Cold War they also played a role in the Soviet Union, as well as in India where Wiener saw certain potential developments arising from newfound technologies. While Wiener was an agnostic throughout his life, his ancestors were Jews and he may have been related to the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, and he developed a profound interest in Indian philosophy and Hinduism ultimately leading him to accept the notion of reincarnation. Wiener's theories played an important role in paving the way for the information age to come and we see the end result of that in the information explosion in this century. This book offers a fascinating examination of the life of Norbert Wiener and is an excellent biography of this great man.
   
   This book starts with Wiener's early life, particularly as he developed into a child prodigy. The book begins with Leo Wiener, the father of Norbert Wiener, who was an adamant proponent of the ideals of Tolstoy and vegetarianism. Leo Wiener came to the United States and eventually made his way to Cambridge, Massachusetts where Norbert's talents for languages became widely known. Norbert Wiener became known as the "most remarkable boy in the world" and would attend university at Tufts and Harvard, originally specializing in zoology, along with other child prodigies such as William James Sidis. Following his Ph.D. at Harvard at the age of 18, Wiener traveled to Europe to study logic and philosophy with such individuals as Bertrand Russell. However, upon returning home, Wiener underwent somewhat of a crisis. Wiener, who was a lifelong manic depressive and prone to absent-minded spells and depressions, would largely see his emotional turmoil as arising out of his early youth. Wiener went on to join the faculty at MIT, an engineering school which hoped to promote a new mathematics department. Wiener made several important contributions and it was here that he developed his science of cybernetics. Wiener was known to all his students for his "Wienerwegs" or "Wienerwalks", where he frequently absent-mindedly roamed about the halls and campus of MIT. Wiener married and had two daughters. He also became involved with various other individuals and prodigies who tried to advance the science of cybernetics and the logical system developed by Russell in the _Principia Mathematica_. Wiener also was active in promoting the Macy conferences, where a diverse group of intellectuals including mathematicians, economists, social scientists, and anthropologists worked out the ideas of cybernetics. Wiener was deeply concerned about the role that automation would play in the coming era and wrote an important work focusing on the "human use of human beings" to show his concern over the new role of automation and computers. Wiener also wrote some more religious and philosophical works in which he attempted to address the problem of the "golem" from Jewish mythology as it concerned man and his creations. During the Cold War, Wiener refused to participate in research for the military and this led to his being branded a "Red" by the FBI. Wiener eventually was to travel to Europe and even the Soviet Union where he attempted to advance the science of cybernetics, although he made clear that he disapproved of the role of both superpowers in the Cold War. Wiener also knew the mathematician and Nobel Prize winner John Nash while he was at MIT. In his old age, Wiener took an interest in India and Hinduism. Wiener attempted to identify a new role for automation in India and the potentially liberating effects of such technologies. Wiener also traveled to Stockholm to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony and it was here that he died.
   
   This book offers an interesting account of the life of an important figure in the dawn of the information age. Norbert Wiener and his science of cybernetics played a great role in giving rise to the information age and the era of computing. While Wiener was certainly a man of many talents and contradictions, he also had a darker side to him as did the technologies made possible through his advances. It is for this reason that he may be seen as the "dark hero of the information age" and the father of cybernetics.

1 comments about Being Rapoport: Capitalist with a Conscience (Focus on American History Series,Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin).

1. Bernard Rapoport is one of a kind for many reasons. He's a resoundingly left-leaning, labor-union-supporting insurance company founder and funder of liberal Democratic candidates and causes down in the heart of Texas, where such a fellow is distinctly unusual. For most of his adult life, he's put his money where his mouth is, even when he had to borrow the money. Now that he has considerable of his own money, he and his wife continue on an even grander scale supporting educational projects here and overseas. .
   
   Rapoport has always been politically active, and for anyone who's lived in Texas 50 years or so, his recounting of friendships and dealings with national and local political figures will bring back many memories. Underlying all this is his story of personal accomplishment in raising himself from financially poor beginnings through business perspicacity and sheer force of personality.

4 comments about A Dresser of Sycamore Trees: The Finding of a Ministry (Nonpareil Book, 95).

1. The story of a man who was a deacon and priest almost without knowing it, and how he ultimately came to be ordained to serve a rural town and church as their priest. Moving and poignant for persons called to serve as deacon or priest who have already been ministers.



2. I am shocked that the publisher would describe this book as "a surprise critical sensation." It's prose alerts us to one Christian's view of the invisible Christ, manifest in people, things, and incidences. It is excellently, thought provokingly written. I cannot with my own words evoke the message of this book, so I will defer to the author, in a quote from his work. . . ."It is about mysticism and orthodoxy, ordinariness and sanctity, unity and diversity and about the intersection of all these things in a design that looks to me like a cross." -pg. 150 Read this book because it is about a common man doing the uncommon and thereby transforming his world, our world, into a place "set apart" for divine possiblities.



3. Garrett Keizer's story will settle even the most adventurous spirit from searching to enfolding an inner Spirit much more gratifying.



4. Garret Keizer's book, A Dresser of Sycamore trees is a thoughtful and carefully written book which describes the "everyday" work of the Holy Spirit in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Keizer's descriptions of his friends and neighbors in this small town are tremendous. He does an amazing job seeing God's presence in his everyday work and ministry as a vicar of a small church and a high school English teacher. He reminds me of what St. Francis is quoted to have said, "Preach the gospel. If necessary, speak." Garret Keizer preaches with his actions and through his descriptions of the lives of "ordinary" people. This is a must - read.

5 comments about Walking Out on the Boys.

1. Sadly, any woman who's achieved a doctorate (& not just in medicine) will relate wholeheartedly to this book. I greatly admire Dr. Conley's unbelievable courage in standing up to the Boys' Club & trying to make things better for women in academia. Hopefully this book will encourage ALL women to stand up to the misogyny & be heard.



2. Frances Conley offers a compelling indictment of gender discrimination at Stanford Medical School, past and present, focussing on her own recent experience. I started this book at midnight and could not put it down until finishing it at 4 a.m. Conley provides case after case of medical school professors given virtually absolute and unchecked power over their subordinates and their subordinates' careers, abusing that power, and the medical school administration covering up that abuse. While she never addresses the issues of solidarity in the face of sexual harassment, her cases all indicate that when one woman protests, she loses, and only a pattern of abuse reported by multiple women leads to any punishment of the harassers at all. Conley was fortunate and grateful that 37 others came forward to support her claim that Gerald Silverberg engaged in inappropriate sexual contact and other activities counterindicating his capability for leadership. I'll be passing this book onto many women who have had the choice to be treated at Stanford Hospital and may well now rethink that choice.



3. I'm not an MD or a PhD; I don't work in a hospital or academia. Yet I too have experienced sexual harassment, and I too have consulted the EEO department that is supposed to get involved in handling these issues, and I found that they were disinterested, that they gave subtle and obvious messages that the problem was "my" problem and not the corporation's, and that they relied on my being too timid or unmotivated to initiate a lawsuit so the whole thing could be, well, ignored. Sexual harassment exists because the society permits men (even encourages men) to expect that it is their right to harass women. Not all men harass, and not all men admire harassers. In fact, it is quite the opposite, but those who possess the attitude that women who dare to compete must be put down through sexual threat or debasement will harass (they also enjoy and even need it, since these men have very real problems). Through her description of her own experiences, the author illuminates the social mechanism of harassment. She also brings to light the story that all we women know -- what it feels like to be the victim not just of a troubled person but of an organization that insists she accept the role of victim. When we are harassed, we women discover the battle we are in, not against one man but against all those societies which are founded on (this does sound harsh, I know) the hatred of women. This is a marvelous book -- hard to read at times if you've been there -- but it is important that women know what we are facing (especially our daughters, who like us may have been programmed to think that all men will be nice to us, will treat us fairly, and that if someone is abusive, it is our own fault, there is something wrong with me, etc.). Important too is having the author detail the steps she took to handle the harassment. This is a very supportive book for anyone enduring just such a situation (harassment as well as gender discrimination, which is a lot more rife and a lot less obvious). I'd recommend this to any woman who is willing to step outside of the traditional role, because we all need to know what we are up against, how the system is going to fail us, and especially all the steps we are entitled to take to combat this problem so that we change society's viewpoint and not just our own. I'd also recommend this to men, because there are many who are supportive of women in the workplace. Our husbands and boyfriends need to read this book to know how difficult it is for women, because in the end we can only effect a change if we all stand together.



4. As a minority faculty in the academics Frances Conley's book vividly portrays the reality of the ivory tower that, though pretentiously progressive in ideas, is way behind the iota of gender equality that exists outside the academe. I, sometimes, feel I am living in the medieval period when entering the academe.

   When I first came across this book I thought this must have been written in the seventies and I could share it with my students as a historical autobiography of sexism in an academic institution. I was horrified to find that it was written in the nineties about one of the most prestigious institution in California.

   I have always felt alone, alienated in the academe and of course disconnected from other women who were struggling too much to bother with the problems of their women peers. This book validated my experience and helped me understand where my alienation was coming from.

   I wish this book could be a standard read for all freshman students in all universities. Only when women who appear to be in power tell their stories of powerlessness and abuse can we act collectively to stop the misogyny that exists among our men and more particularly among our elite men.




5. Men groping women. Men coming on to women, and making incredible jackasses of themselves in the process. Men getting drunk and acting like barbarians. Men with one thing in mind. Men whose compulsion to talk about sex is so strong that they do it at highly inappropriate times in public. Men who think that pressuring women is their God-given right. If you think that what I just described is a high school football team on an overdose of steroids, you're wrong. These sexual antics weren't perpetrated by adolescents with testosterone bubbling out their ears, they were committed by male doctors at Stanford University. Not being stupid, these demigods put two and two together and realized that they could use their power to pressure women. One of these men made a fatal mistake, though: he pressured Dr. Frances Conley, a topnotch neurosurgeon and renowned researcher at Stanford. Bad move, fella. I suppose that guy never learned that if you're going to pick a fight, you don't provoke someone who can whack you back so hard you just might rethink whether it's wise to be a bully.

   As publicity spread about Dr. Conley's fight, more and more women came forward to reveal their stories. This was certainly an eye-opening book. Before reading it, I'd never given much thought about the sexual harassment of women in medicine and allied healthcare fields. Perhaps we're more civilized here in Michigan, because I've never seen or heard of any such hanky-panky. Well, let me revise that last statement: I have witnessed a lot of sexual inducement, but what I saw was women chasing men not the other way around. But everyone knows that those California folks are trendsetters.

   Dr. Conley never envisioned herself as a trendsetter, though. For years, she passively participated in the abuse until a concatenation of events convinced her that it was time to draw a line in the sand. To make a long story short, the men didn't believe she'd put up much of a fight, but she did, and they lost. Big time.

   (...) Perhaps the most chilling message in this book is that some men in positions of power are willing to use that power to stifle the careers of women. So what is an attractive woman to assume? That if she goes into medicine her pulchritude will serve as a magnet for sexual harassment? Perhaps this abuse is, unbeknownst to me, more pervasive than I think. I suppose because most of my friends are women, I can't understand men who view women as being somehow inferior. However, you shouldn't necessarily construe from that statement that I think women physicians are as competent, on average, as male physicians. There's no doubt that some are, and there's no doubt that Dr. Conley is a superior physician, not just competent. (...) My only major criticism of the book is that it is too focused upon abuse of women by men. Since the core of this book is hinged upon some of the depredations that ensue when power is abused, I think she could have achieved a more balanced perspective by pointing out that powerful people often use their power against men, too ý not just women. I've seen male docs fight one another with such a vehemence that it made the stories in Dr. Conley's book seem as pleasant as afternoon tea and cookies with a neighbor. Consequently, while I don't intend to trivialize the unfortunate reality of the abuse Dr. Conley documents, it's important to keep in mind that this abuse is but one aspect of a much larger problem. In defense of Dr. Conley, broadening the scope of this book to include other aspects of hospital politics would have diluted the message she wished to inculcate, and it would have made for a very unwieldy book. With that in mind, I suppose I'm on shaky ground by wishing that her book had a wider focus. Her book, her demeanor, her dedication, her resolve, and her competence are commendable. Dr. Conley is a great doctor and I am happy to have met her, however indirectly, by reading this book.

   Review by Kevin Pezzi, M.D.

5 comments about The Family Silver: A Memoir of Depression and Inheritance.

1. I LOVED this book. Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down.
   
   I grew up in the same Boston suburb as the author, in a family spiraling in similar downward economic mobility, and I'm about the same age as the author, so many of her experiences mirrored my own. Her mirror brought me surprising clarity and compassion with regard to my parents' struggles and the impact their struggles had on my own growing up.
   
   I'm a psychologist now. When I look at this book from my professional viewpoint, as someone who treats and writes about depression, I also feel that it's a terrific resource. I will be recommending it to adults I treat for recurrent depressive episodes.
   
   The author's depressions started when she was an adolescent, and continued intermittently through much of her adult life. Watching her gain understanding and mastery over this depressive tendency gave me a deeper understanding of how I can help the depressed individuals with whom I work.
   
   BRAVO to the author, and thanks!



2. O'Brien has written a "Memoir of Depression and Inheritance" and she succeeds brilliantly in all of these intentions. This book works beautifully as a memoir, evoking in three dimensions, in colour and almost with smells and sounds, the world of upper-middle class expectations and genteel failure and the anxieties of her parents, and the alternative world of Elmira, which to me has the ring of a magic land. The people - mother, father, siblings, aunts - are whole and understandable and believable and sympathetic. The whole world within which the author strives to grow up is real and immediate on the page.
   
   More than a memoir, O'Brien has the ambition of understanding inheritance. Her book links behaviour and consequence and puts forward explanations and theories of action and traces the interconnecting threads that link relative with relative and past with outcome. This does not obtrude in the narrative: her skill in writing presents these insights as natural extensionds to the momentum of the absorbing story.
   
   The inheritance that is at the centre of O'Brien's understanding is the inheritance of depression. She addresses this with subtlety - she understands, and manages to present the complexity of inheritance and upbringing, accident and fate, biochemistry and environment, individual and social history. She is also alert to the accidents of everyday life that contribute to, and often trigger depression. I love her " `occasions of depression' which the vulnerable among us need to avoid or manage carefully." (p. 159) on the analogy of the "occasions of sin" that beset the unwary Roman Catholic.
   
   The framework for a real humane psychology should be biography, and the complex threads through which a biography is realized. O'Brien's beautiful book is a contribution to this true science of psychology. The fact that it is contained in this insightful memoir and is presented in superb language probably means that it will never feature in psychology reading lists, but it should (though the first reviewer here gives us hope!).



3. I just couldn't put this book down. This helped me understand so much about myself and my family...and how we've all been shaped by the past. O'brien's humor and warmth stay with you long after you've read the book. A must read for anyone who comes from a family.



4. This is a fascinating account of growing up as an Irish American in the mid 20th century told with dark Irish humor but always with love. It is one of the best accounts of the true impact of depression on the family as well as the individual. One of the best books I have read in the past year.



5. I read this book for the reasons I think most people would read a book with this subtitle - to see if I could identify with the author and perhaps gain some new insight from her experience. As I progressed through it, I was amazed by the congruence of our experiences, but felt a rising call to let the author know her conclusions left me wondering how she could have missed the bigger picture, the common denominations that make it possible for her to connect with people who do not have her specific family history. Ms. O'Brien traces her depression to Irish history, specifically to simply being Irish and a descendant of the town the famine hit hardest. But my own family history has not a drop of Irish in it and I turned down page after page of parallels in her experience and mine. I wanted to tell her, "forget the Irish, already, and focus on the feelings, the reactions to loss and shame that make us all human." Another thread in her story is her almost worshipful attachment to her father. My relationship to my own was similar and I also never married. Yet, when a therapist gives her some insight into how it has affected her, she rejects completely the opportunity to learn something from it and trashes the therapist. So... I am glad I read her book, to find there are others who have lived a life very much in many ways like my own, but I don't feel I was hearing wisdom from the writer and that disappointed me.

5 comments about The Road to Home: My Life and Times.

1. I first learned of Vartan Gregorian when he became provost of the University of Pennsylvania while I was attending grad school there. He was a colorful figure who seemed to be as much at odds with the university as the contentious students during the turbulent late 70's. Later, he went on to head the New York Public Library and then Brown University. He seemed to have a magical way to become influential and well-liked. After reading this book, I liked him a lot and wished I'd had a chance to know him while I was at Penn. Gregorian is a man of letters and great charisma.
   
   Gregorian's story of his life is as charming as his public persona. From the opening lines about his life in Tabriz, Iran as a member of the Armenian minority community there, to his wise grandmother who raised him, his life is exciting and fraught with tragedy and pitfalls. His mother dies in childbirth and his father essentially abandons the family. Somehow, Vartan manages to find an education despite great difficulties and he is sponsored finally to go to the Armenian University in Beirut. From there, his career as a professor and man of letters takes off and he soars, always helped by friends of influence who provide that wind under his wings. And he's grateful. He moves some thirty times (not thirty jobs, as he points out) and goes from Stanford to Texas to Penn, to New York and places in between. All along he meets luminaries like Jackie Kennedy Onassis, the Queen of England, makes friends with former BU president John Silber and yet seems to stay folksy and unaffected by all the glitter.
   
   The book is highly readable and a fine memoir--whether you've heard of Gregorian or not, this is a wonderful tale about a man who overcame ridiculously bad odds to become one of America's most influential public figures in education. I thoroughly enjoyed it.



2. Vartan Gregorian's autobiographic tract, "A Road to Home," tells an extraordinary story. It is the quintessential American Success Story. Here is an Armenian immigrant who comes from a village in Northern Iran, with his high school education completed in Jemaran, the Armenian School of considerable note in Beirut, who earns a BA and a PhD from Stanford (in history, specialty: Afghanistan), teaches at San Francisco State and UT, Austin, ends up being Dean, Provost and almost the President of U. Penn., rescues and forges the renaissance of the New York City public library system from imminent disaster by taking over as president for eight years, becomes the president of Brown University for the next nine years and along the way, turns down the Chancellorship of UC Berkeley, the Presidency of Columbia Univ., Univ. of Miami, Univ. of Michigan, Univ. of Rochester and many others, before becoming president of the Carnegie Corporation.
   
   That pinnacle of academic positions of leadership, the presidency of a university, is not a chance given to very many people. That privilege of being the visionary leader of an institution of higher learning (as well as its chief fund raiser) is reserved to the best of the best and Vartan Gregorian has been one of the most sought after candidates for that post over the last twenty years being on almost everyone's short list! To say that he went from humble beginnings to the very top of the intellectual and academic life in America is to considerably understate the miracles that have paved the way of this deserving and gifted man's life journey. The perilous road that has lead him to the zenith of what America has to offer a scholar is depicted with great humility and panache in the pages of "The Road to Home," a Simon and Schuster 2003 publication. Everyone interested in how fate outstrips logic and predictability ought to read this book. Here is the chronicle of how the brilliance of a kid is first noted and appreciated enough somehow (by a French consular Attache' who happens to be Armenian) and then rewarded and protected by a long chain of benefactors and friends in the middle East (mostly Armenians) and in America (Armenians and many more non Armenians) both, catapulting a strange boy in great need for love and acceptance to shine as an intellectual and scholar, to conquer the toughest of tasks as an administrator, mediator, moderator, visionary, fund raiser, diplomat, keeper of the faith, lighter of the torch of knowledge and learning in Philadelphia, in New York City, in Providence, Rhode Island and in New York City again where, since 1997, he has been the president of the Carnegie Corporation which is a philanthropic organization of great weight and import in the cultural life of America and indeed the world. There are many immigrant stories that make America's spinning roulette wheel of success seem impossible to believe. Here is another such spectacular tale told by the master communicator himself, the staunch believer in education, the power of books, the beauty of scholarship and a man who has found his niche in high society and academe in America against impossible odds.
   
   Imagine a young boy in Tabriz, Iran, born in 1934 to Armenian parents in this Northern Province of Persia known as Azerbaijan. His mother, Shoushig, dies when he is six and a half years old. Together with his little sister Ojik, he is raised by their maternal grandmother, Voski Mirzaian. Her's is the strongest and most lasting influence on this poor boy's life. She is mother and father and grandmother to them since their father is never around, working elsewhere, such as near oil fields, to make ends meet, and is never a warm father anyway, even when he is around. In fact, he is a strange, cold, distant, remarried man who never encourages little Vartanig, never teaches him anything (even though he gives private English lessons to others), never gives him any sort of advice or love of any sort! These circumstances alone ought to be enough to scar a man for life and make it hard for him to have sufficient self-confidence to make it in this cruel world. Add to that the changing of hands of their province between Persia and Soviet Russia, the Second World War, depravity, being part of a Christian Minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim city and country, poverty, lack of food, clothing, proper shelter, constant peril and it is a miracle indeed that this boy grew up to amount to anything at all. The details of these harrowing times are depicted with great care and meticulous detail in the first fifth of the book, The Road to Home. Here we have the familiar positive influence of the Armenian Church, becoming an acolyte and developing a very warm relationship with the steady, ancient tradition of the liturgy and faith that is the hallmark of the Armenian Apostolic tradition. The solace Vartanig derives from these experiences acts as a counterweight to the lack of love and nourishment at home under his father's roof with his younger wife who cares very little for him or his sister. Vartan has his grandmother who teaches him wisdom, myth, faith, morality, history and traditional Armenian tall tails all brewed in one living magic cauldron. Stars and winds and ghosts and other mythological figures intermingle and fire up this precocious boy's imagination as a steady nightly diet administered by his grandmother and her tender loving care. It is remarkable how much of this he reproduces more than fifty years later in the pages of his autobiography. His is a genuine and profound love for his grandmother. Plus, he is far too intelligent not to absorb all he can learn from her about life and this world naturally. Vartan grows and observes the changing world around him. Soviet communists come and go, muslem extremism is always suspected to be a palpable threat to the Armenians and to all Christian boys and girls in particular. Pedophiliacs must be avoided and are rumored to be all around. Street fights with Muslim boys are routine. Vartan reaches his teen years, attending school with worn out shoes, without money to buy books but able to read everything written in Armenian he can get his hands on at the library of the Armenian church and community center. He then starts to write for the Armenian newspaper "Alik" as well about daily affairs and even deliver eulogies at the funeral of important Armenian citizens of Tabriz. From these surroundings, he is somehow able to extricate himself at the age of fifteen at the bold suggestion of the French Vice-consul, Edgar Maloyan, who instructs him he go to Beirut and attend high school at Jemaran. The first turning point or plot point of this story is his grandmother authorizing his departure knowing that it is best for him and his future to leave their village and embrace the larger world. The crown jewel of Armenian schools in Beirut in the fifties with an emphasis on French (and Arabic) instruction and a thorough Armenian education including classical Armenian and Armenian history and culture beyond a normal high school degree was Nshan Palanjian Jemaran. But such a school was simply unreachable for a poor boy from Tabriz whose father would not be of any help and who spoke no Arabic or French to begin with! But he did manage to go to Beirut on his own with just $50 to his name, find people to sponsor him, to take him under their wings, nurture him, find money for him, donate food, arrange make shift dwelling at some sort of "Hotel Luxe" until boarding school facilities were inaugurated a few years hence, and even teach him French on the side so that he could catch up and graduate a few years behind schedule but brilliantly. This unlikely passage to Beirut and an institution of higher learning, makes Vartan think of the words of Graham Greene who once said and he quotes: " There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in." That was Vartan's moment.
   
   It is at Jemaran that his knack for being noticed, appreciated, aided and nurtured takes root in earnest. In Beirut, in the early and middle nineteen fifties, around the intellectual community of Jemaran, many notable Armenians take on his cause. Chief among them is Simon Vratsian, the principal of the school. Vartan becomes one of the unofficial secretaries of this honorable Armenian intellectual who was the last prime minister of the first Armenian Republic before Armenia fell into the clutches of the Soviet empire in 1920. Vartan reads and learns all he can get his hands on at Jemaran. In addition, he writes many of Vratsian's letters since Simon is almost blind by then. Vartan, through this experience, if nothing else, becomes groomed for academic administration since he is exposed to it at a very early age and in all its multiple facets of fund raising and community affairs and public relations and vision and rigor and all other aspects of pedagogy. Vartan, in need of a father figure, in need of people to believe in him and encourage him, finds many in Beirut and in Jemaran, all of which is delicately and precisely depicted in The Road to Home. He completes the entire venerable "Hayakidagan" (Armenology) course, reads voraciously, learns about life in the fast and wild town which Beirut was in the 1950s and graduates with honors ready to be shipped out to the West coast where he is accepted in Stanford. Le Petit Paris, as Beirut is referred to, makes a man out of him and a man hungry for knowledge.
   
   The next fifth of the book is about his spectacular career at Stanford both as an undergraduate and graduate student. Again, his brilliance and remarkable attributes are detected by professors who become his champions for life! He is helped by these historians and scholars throughout his academic journey. They see a future for him he cannot even imagine and take it upon themselves to walk him through the steps to achieve greatness! Vartan is appreciated and guided by giants in his field who pave the way for him and are always rewarded by how well he does, given these opportunities. Instead of being supported by Jemaran throughout his stay at Stanford, he receives University support at the end of two years, finishes his BA that quickly and starts his graduate program right then and there. He has a rich life at Stanford, which molds him further as a man and as a scholar. He meets his future wife there and marries her in such spectacular fashion that I do not want to spoil it by paraphrasing the story here. You will have to read pages 132-135 to see for yourself. Clare Russell learns Armenian and becomes his mate for life from that time on. Theirs is a happy marriage and one where the journey is shared and burdens distributed and hardships met with equal courage and valor on both their parts.
   
   And its not that Vartan does not put Clare in harm's way! For starters, he receives a substantial travel and research grant to spend time in London, Paris, Beirut, Kabul and Karachi. His aim is to gather the raw data for his thesis on Afghanistan's transition to becoming a modern state. He takes Clare along for this trip but she is already pregnant so by the time they arrive in Beirut, she gives birth and stays there while Vartan goes to Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and back on his own. This remarkable woman now has to fend for herself in a hotel room (where the giant cockroaches are described in vivid detail in the book) with a newborn son! She does so with the help of all the same cast of characters associated with Jemaran and the thriving Armenian community in Beirut when Vartan was there alone 6 years earlier. History repeats itself, Vartan avails himself of the generosity and friendship of old acquaintances and his research makes very good progress.
   
   Back to California they come and a job as a history instructor at San Francisco State University. Why? Because there are no jobs that can be arranged at AUB or Jemaran in Beirut! Vartan would have loved staying in Beirut. He tries and his meteoric rise to the top of US academic circles is because there are no suitable teaching jobs for him in Beirut! Lucky for us, one could say. Vartan faces the middle to late sixties in San Francisco. A less than ideal choice given the turmoil at the local Universities then, the hippy movement, the sit ins, the Black Panthers, the anti-war movement... It is a mess and a new assistant professor has to face it all in a hot seat that was SF State. Not as bad as Berkeley, as the book explains, but close.
   
   It is no surprise then that the newly minted PhD who is barely able to make ends meet with an academic salary at a state school (living with a wife and son) and teaching part time here and there including Stanford and other colleges, welcomes the chance to go to the university of Texas, after a short stint at UCLA and teach at a research university with a graduate program and be a historian. His book "The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880-1946" was just then accepted for publication by Stanford University press. In the meantime, He visits Beirut again and Armenia and hopes to write a book on the modern history of that country. Instead, he gets involved in University politics down in Austin. He is asked to help the dean and that work eventually lands him in the middle of political infighting within factions of the faculty and the administration. The Road to Home describes this in great detail in chapter 10. Vartan Gregorian, learns to be an active player in University politics at UT. He then takes an endowed chair in Armenian studies at U Penn. and escapes the firings and turmoil that leave no friendly faces down in Texas. He also joins the history department of this prestigious ivy league school and embarks on the fast track career to high level university administration. He first becomes the founding dean of the college of arts and sciences at the age of thirty five! This is followed by heroic efforts at organizing the university for the bicentennial of our nation in 1976, a major fund raising campaign, and the attainment of the top academic post of Provost. Dr. Gregorian learns what its like to deal with the board of Trustees of a university and all the internal politics and machinations that would make the chatter at the Tower of Babel sound like a Gregorian Chant. He perseveres, helps solve many of U Penn's problems and sets a very good course for the university. Alas, there is opposition to his ascension to the post of President. In the meantime, he agonizes over the offer of being Berkeley's Chancellor, a lifelong dream of his and ultimate goal throughout his early academic career. He decides to stay at Penn because he is told he should finish what he started. He is told that he is a shoe in for the presidency. He should just wait and assume the helm. Alas, he is blocked at the end and many of the fat cats who are trustees of the university who do not like him are, let us say, blue bloods, who do not believe he would have the "social graces" (or the looks, perhaps) for such a job... Hmm... racism? You bet! Discrimination against a darker skinned, curly haired, short Armenian man whose brilliance and dedication and virtues they could not see? Surely! Philadelphia is well depicted in this book as being full of "Mayflower" syndrome suffering WASPs. Poor Vartan falls victim to their ingrate state.
   
   But, the star of this story ascends far beyond a stuffy old school's board room antics and lands as the savior of the New York City Public Library system. This eighty nine distinct branch or property system which was at the verge of collapse and irreversible decay is resurrected under the able leadership of Dr. Gregorian for eight long years of fourteen hour days and double lunches and double dinners and fund raising and consciousness raising activities and innovations and vision setting leadership. At the completion of that renovation campaign he finally accepts the presidency of an Ivy League School, Brown University, in Providence Rhode Island. His nine years there reorient that school towards a far more successful path and improve its minority and gender distribution and hiring practices and many other modern innovations that take Brown to a far higher ground of success than it was in 1989 when Dr. Gregorian took over its helm.
   
   The latest chapter in the career of this tireless and remarkable man dedicated to academia, scholarship, libraries, books, teaching and a life of the mind is to head up the Carnegie Corporation, which is a charitable organization of the first caliber dedicated to the betterment of the world through the dissemination of knowledge. Dr. Gregorian is a happy man from all appearances. He is a tireless advocate for causes he believes in with a passion. His enthusiasm is contagious. He sets courses for action and follows through with them till the end. He is a no nonsense achiever who has aided many a worthwhile cause with absolute dedication and imperturbable resolve. He has never rested on his laurels nor has he taken the easy way out.
   
   One could imagine that being an Armenian and an immigrant gave Dr. Gregorian the advantage over more traditional local talent. He sure had something to prove and he was hungry throughout the journey. He appreciated all that was done for him and he took none of it for granted. He wanted to make his life mean something. He knew of the Armenian genocide and the displacement of his people. He knew that an Armenian owes his being alive to divine fate and that squandering his life away and the opportunities so many had sacrificed so much to make possible for him would be cruelly wasted if it were not his task to make them all proud. As this book shows, one can not praise this dedicated administrator enough for all the potential he has unleashed in New York, Philadelphia and Rhode Island by untiring dedication and a principled approach to the betterment of this land of freedom he has adopted as his own.
   
   My only criticism of the book is that it leaves so much out! There is so much more one would have liked to hear him describe and discuss. For instance, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, how did he perceive the differences between the Armenians he met in Beirut from the Iranian Armenians he knew back in Tabriz and Teheran? How about the Armenian communities in the SF bay area and Philadelphia, NY and Providence? Any differences and similarities there, he would care to dissect for us? What happened to his book on Armenia? Are there notes left of that work? His research and plans? Is that water under the bridge now? Did he ever produce any graduate students of his own in Texas or U Penn? What are his PhD students up to, if he has had any? That is, what is his intellectual legacy as a scholar? And another thing, what does he think of Afghanistan today? The book makes reference to 9-11 and to unrelated speeches he has given in 2002. How about Afghanistan? He was, after all, a world expert in this arena at one point not so long ago. Similarly, what efforts has he made on behalf of the Armenian cause or for free and independent Armenia since 1991? What are his views on how Armenia's intellectual capital can be preserved or augmented? What can we do and what course of action would he suggest given his vast experience at administering universities and charitable organizations? It would help a lot if he would write publicly and let everyone know what he sees as a best coarse of action. Dr. Gregorian is an asset of immeasurable proportions to a community that can only be awed and proud to call him one of their own. In short, read The Road to Home. Its message to all Armenians and Americans seems to be, you can find a home (after all) if you keep your eyes wide open in this land of vast opportunity.



3. Education, street smart (partially due to his street friends of youth), networking ability, social skills, socializing selectively among the most influential, are contributors to this author's achievements in life thus far.
   
   It would be worth while for Mr. Gregorian to use his skills and experiences in helping today's independent Armenia.



4. Although Dr. Gregorian was a poor Armenian boy from Tabriz, Iran, he had a rich cultural heritage. Influential hometown people, who seemed captivated by his charm and intellectual brilliance, helped him, not only just to survive, but to get a good education, leading him, by way of Beirut, to the U.S. and Stanford University where, after graduating in only 2-1/2 years (while also learning English), he got a PhD in humanities and history. His teaching career began at San Francisco State College, where, 41 years ago, I had the privilege of being one of his students in modern European history. This was during the years of the student uprising that occurred during 1966 to 1968 at S.F. State. Since Dr. Gregorian is a historian, this memoir is made all the more richer by historical commentary that Dr. Gregorian provides vis-à-vis autobiographical events. His teaching career moves from S.F. State (where he took a year off to go to Afghanistan to study and write a classic book on Afghanistan) to the University of Texas at Austin, then to the University of Pennsylvania where he became Provost. This story makes the trials, tribulations and infighting that go on in universities actually interesting. When Dr. Gregorian took over the presidency of the New York Public Library in 1981, it was suffering from extreme neglect due to New York's financial crises in the late 1970's when NYC was on the edge of bankruptcy. Besides his talent for creative administration, his personal virtues attract the rich and famous (i.e., Brooke Astor, Barbara Walters) to help him achieve his financial objectives for restoring the library. He turned the New York Public Library from a dissipated, physically crumbling institution back to a vibrant educational center in New York City. If you live in New York City, you might have noticed the regeneration of Bryant Park; he was also mostly responsible for that. Following nine years as President of Brown University, Dr. Gregorian became President of the Carneige Corporation, where he is today. For American autobiographies, I can't recommend this book highly enough.



5. Vartan Gregorian has written a thoroughly fascinating book about his remarkable life and accomplishments. In this day and age a great deal of attention is paid to the "common man", as it well should be. But we tend to overlook the fact that it is the uncommon man that leads the way to advances in our culture. Vartan Gregorian is an compelling example of the remarkable talent nature only rarely incorporates into a human body, enabling startling results to be achieved.
   
   From an unremarkable -- indeed, unpromising -- beginning, the child Vartan depended not on his family but on his grandmother and interested strangers to encourage his budding talents. His Armenian ancestors had fled to Iran from persecution and death in Turkey. His mother died when he was a young boy and his father and his stepmother were not close to him. But through a variety of fortuitous interventions he found his way from Iran to Stanford, where he earned his first academic degree.
   
   At Stanford he married a remarkable woman who evidently shared his ability to adjust to new and challenging conditions. She had her first baby in Iran as Gregorian traveled in Afghanistan on a research grant. Then Gregorian began a dizzying ascent of academic activity that took him first to San Francisco State College, then to the University of Texas, and ultimately to the University of Pennsylvania where he became provost. His descriptions of academic politics -- the confoundedly complex interactions of presidents, deans, chancellors, and trustees -- are as fascinating as they are gut-twisting.
   
   It was Gregorian's next move that put him on the public radar. He reluctantly became the head of New York City's Public Library. It was a decaying empire, having reached its peak in earlier decades but now floundering with insufficient scholastic vision and financial support. Gregorian proved to be just the man with the unusual abilities to turn things gloriously around. His vast scholarly knowledge, his enthusiasm and energy, his sense of humor, and his charisma brought in tens of millions of dollars from wealthy donors who were grateful that they had a cause to believe in, as well as a man in whom they could put their trust to use their money in a constructive way.
   
   Gregorian's accomplishments continued unabated as he then moved into the presidency of Brown University, ultimately becoming the head of the Carnegie Foundation.
   
   Here is a man of energy ("I was born energetic"), of vision, of knowledge, of acumen, of character, of superlative accomplishment. Here is a man to admire, to be inspired by. Here is the uncommon man who boosts culture upward.

No comments about Without Guarantees: In Honour of Stuart Hall.

3 comments about Portraits in Leadership: Six Extraordinary University Presidents (ACE/Praeger Series on Higher Education).

1. Even though this is essentially a research book it is very well
   written and contains a solid presentation of the leadership process. The chapter summarizing leadership research is the best I've seen and provides an original framework around which to read the case studies. There has been a lot of academic research on leadership over the last twenty years and much of it is incomprehensible and so specific as to be relatively useless but the author's original synthesis of this work
   is excellent. The cases studies are not only very entertaining but they follow this basic leadership framework developed in the theory chapter. The chapter on the University as a complex organization is also very good and highly readable. I recommend the book both as an essay on leadership and as an analysis of university presidency.



2. I'm the head of a small, non-profit organization so I was not sure whether this book would actually be of much interest. But as one of the reviewers on the book-jacket writes, this book should be very useful to people outside universities as well. It is well-written and very engaging. What makes it especially appealing is the author's ability to take "academese" and convert it into understandable English. His chapter on leadership is one of the most original I have seen and the discussion of "resiliency" is fascinating. He also presents six detailed case studies and each is written essentially to stand alone. The first three chapters lay out a conceptual blueprint and this makes each case easier to interpret. His use of compelling anecdotes and well-researched historical passages really bring the cases to life. Highly recommended.



3. Professor Padilla has written a book on the characters and operating principles of a collection of exemplary academic leaders. While this volume is well researched, it exceeds the usual academic exercises in that it is eminently readable, insightful and human. The instructive lessons are clear and generally applicable to students of business management.