Author: Daniel Drezner File Type: pdf The public intellectual, as a person and ideal, has a long and storied history. Writing in venues like the New Republic and Commentary, such intellectuals were always expected to opine on a broad array of topics, from foreign policy to literature to economics. Yet in recent years a new kind of thinker has supplanted that archetype the thought leader. Equipped with one big idea, thought leaders focus their energies on TED talks rather than highbrow periodicals. How did this shift happen? In The Ideas Industry, Daniel W. Drezner points to the roles of political polarization, heightened inequality, and eroding trust in authority as ushering in the change. In contrast to public intellectuals, thought leaders gain fame as single-idea merchants. Their ideas are often laudable and highly ambitious ending global poverty by 2025, for example. But instead of a class composed of university professors and freelance intellectuals debating in highbrow magazines, thought leaders often work through institutions that are closed to the public. They are more immune to criticism--and in this century, the criticism of public intellectuals also counts for less. Three equally important factors that have reshaped the world of ideas have been waning trust in expertise, increasing political polarization and plutocracy. The erosion of trust has lowered the barriers to entry in the marketplace of ideas. Thought leaders dont need doctorates or fellowships to advance their arguments. Polarization is hardly a new phenomenon in the world of ideas, but in contrast to their predecessors, todays intellectuals are more likely to enjoy the support of ideologically friendly private funders and be housed in ideologically-driven think tanks. Increasing inequality as a key driver of this shift more than ever before, contemporary plutocrats fund intellectuals and idea factories that generate arguments that align with their own. But, while there are certainly some downsides to the contemporary ideas industry, Drezner argues that it is very good at broadcasting ideas widely and reaching large audiences of people hungry for new thinking. Both fair-minded and trenchant, The Ideas Industry will reshape our understanding of contemporary public intellectual life in America and the West. **About the Author Daniel Drezner is Professor of International Politics at Tufts University and a regular contributor to the Washington Post. Along with having one of the most heavily trafficked blogs in the world of academia, he is also the author of The System Worked Theories of International Relations and Zombies All Politics is Global and The Sanctions Paradox.

Author: Denys Arthur Winstanley File Type: pdf Denys Arthur Winstanley (1877-1947), was a Fellow of Trinity College from 1906 until his death. His work included four important books on the history of the University of Cambridge between 1750 and 1882. This volume describes the many reforms to the educational system made during the early Victorian period changes in college and university statutes, reform of the examinations, the foundation of Downing College and of Regius Professorships. Adopting an episodic rather than chronological approach, he is able to tease out specific controversies of the period such as a contested change of Mastership in Trinity, or the struggle for power in the Fitzwilliam Museum Syndicate. The extensive historical research in this book means that it holds its value today as a reliable source of information for historians of education in the early nineteenth century.Book DescriptionThe first historian to gain access to the papers of Prince Albert as Chancellor of the University as well as contemporary correspondence and diaries, Winstanley provides an admirably detailed portrait of the workings of the university between 1800 and 1860.