Today's L.A. Times has a terrific profile of Victor Davis Hanson. The piece is quite favorable to VDH, but mentions that he is not without his critics:
Prominent colleagues in classics accuse him of putting scholarship in the service of neoconservative, bellicose politics.Thank God we aren't seeing very many left-wing professors making their scholarship subservient to their political agenda."Hanson is a very skillful scholar who made some major contributions," said W. Robert Connor, a retired Princeton University classicist. "What makes me nervous is that over time, the political agenda in his work has become stronger and more evident. I worry that the scholarly talent has become subservient to the political."
Hat tip: LGF
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 25, 2004 02:13 PMI'm sure Professor (ret'd) Connor also regularly laments the politicization of work by his colleagues Sean Wilentz and Cornel West of Princeton, as well as Paul Kennedy's past forays into policy. And wasn't Professor Connor, in the past, also worried about the likes of Stephen Cohen (who authored the regular column "Homo Sovieticus" in the Nation magazine)?
Posted by: Dean on February 25, 2004 03:46 PMVery funny last line. It's just amazing how little these professors realize they are surrounded by politicized academic work.
Posted by: Greg Piper on February 26, 2004 02:06 AM