In Plato's cave

In this humorous and thought-provoking book, a distinguished scholar tells of his experiences as a student, faculty member, and administrator at Yale, Princeton, and other prestigious universities over the last half of this century. Alvin Kernan's wry memoir is also a telling commentary on the transformation of higher education in the United States - from a meritocratic, positivist, and authoritarian institution to one that is democratic, relativistic, and open.

Kernan shows at close range how the change from the traditional academic order to the new educational ways was fought out, inch by grudging inch. He discusses the struggle for equality of opportunity for women and minorities; the questioning of administrative and intellectual authority; the appearance of deconstructive types of relativism; the technological shift from printed to electronic information; the politicization of the classroom; and much more.

Throughout he relates how he and his colleagues responded to these great changes in higher education, and his personal account gives new insight into what has been won - and lost - in the culture wars.