Re: icymi above
 

I'm aware (quite well, as I know someone who's worked with him) of Ferguson's shortcomings. But I think you're a bit harsh here. He does have respected works in his canon. It's his later stuff that lacks underpinning and seems designed for middle minded readers.

And he is an insightful guest on various podcasts and programs. There's a mind willing to admit the other side's points there, unlike D'Souza, who seems pathologically unhinged and rabid toward Obama.

Re: icymi above
 

I haven't made it past the first chapter of any of his books, because by then I felt like I'd gotten his point and he was just repeating himself.

Some of that may be the choice to write pop history instead of academic works, but some of it is just an inherent laziness and unwillingness to dig deep.

As to insightful guest - meh. He's someone you can have a drink with or eat a meal with, but he wilts quickly under questions from someone better versed in the subject matter he is dealing with. He would have ranked in the bottom 10% of my profs in college. He could have taught the jock classes.

When I was a young 'un, we thrilled at the debates, both public and private, between Edward Said and Bernard Lewis - there was a conservative who dug deep, who did his reading (even if he did stop visiting the Middle East after a spell). Edward Said has 1000 successors in today's academe - Bernard Lewis just two or three.

Re: icymi above
 

I thought “The Pity of War” was provocative and novel (in a good way), even though my Not Revisionist* inner historian thought it was wrong with a capital W.

Confession: I only read enough Edward Said to be able to hit on the rebellious [name of the primarily Jewish sorority at my land-grant football factory undergrad alma mater redacted] intellectual girls. Je regrette nein.

*Usually

Re: icymi above
 

Ferguson was a full professor at Harvard, and gave that up to join the Hoover Institute, which has a patina of scholarship because of its affiliation with Stanford but is *not* the same thing at all -- it's essentially a conservative-funded think tank. Ferguson did some serious work, and then he abandoned it to do what he's doing now.

Re: icymi above
 

There is a really meaningful distinction between a Cap One Jacksonville Jaguars affinity Visa card and an American Express Centurion card, but they are both credit cards.

Re: icymi above
 

I married an anthropology major, but please -- it's not a science.

Why? If you are trying a tort case, you don't need to consider the intervention of invisible aliens using technology we can't understand, even though it's a potential cause.

What if you just accept that systemic oppression is evil in part because it enlists its victims in their own degradation? Black policemen sometimes shoot young black men for no good reason. Women blame other women's clothes for sexual assault. And so on. You don't need science to acknowledge that. But you do need to explain why you think it matters.

Re: icymi above
 

Not in the interviews I've heard recently. He was not inclined to entertain challenges to his ideas.

Speaking as someone who has read several of his books.

Agreed, but in retrospect his desire to be provocative was a warning sign.

Re: icymi above
 

He's only been there a couple of years; I thought that was move was mostly about money, they were willing to pay him, give him a title, and not require that he teach.

I think he tries in a way.

Re: icymi above
 

I will confess I never cracked Pity of War. A few years ago, my reading group (when we were still ambitious) did a WWI reading project where we had three histories and a bunch of literature, and I actually suggested it because it looked interesting. But several people got to it before me and it got trashed enough that I didn't bother, and focused on the other stuff. The consensus of the group was that there was a ton of stuff in the other histories that he wasn't addressing that undermined his thesis, and that it might have been interesting if the other histories didn't make it all seem like bunk.

I wouldn't read too much Said now, his disciples have all passed him, though back in the day he was a mentor of mine. The best of them is Rosa Maria Menocal, and she should be read if you are ever going to a reunion and want to impress those rebellious sorority intellectuals (now there are three words I never expected to type in that order).

Re: icymi above
 

are any "soft sciences" science?

Re: icymi above
 

You know who else touts his affiliation with Hoover as a sign that he should be taken seriously as a scholar? Dinesh D'Souza.

Re: icymi above
 

You, sir, are a snob. The Greeks may not want no [rebellious intellectual] freaks, but there’s many a mile between tea and cookies rush early freshman year and engaging in Marxian dialectics junior year.

It starts, or so I hear, with the Bell Jar and Annais Nin.

Re: icymi above
 

The Jewish sorority at your large midwest football school was full of intellectuals?

Re: icymi above
 

I personally think Hoover is a step down and a nice way to isolate yourself from having to deal with people who disagree with you, but there are plenty of people there who are pretty bright, starting with Condi Rice.

I didn't realize they'd associated themselves with D'Souza. That's a great way to diminish your brand.

Re: icymi above
 

Look, I never experienced the large land-grant school thing, I consider myself educated by your posts.

As to the snob part, I prefer "Eastern Elite" or even just a simple "Globalist"