Of all those people capable of providing a critical snapshot of contemporary Australian universities, why on earth would the ABC Board have decided that the incumbent vice-chancellor of a sandstone university was an appropriate choice? It would be like asking Rupert Murdoch to give a series of lectures on media and freedom. Oops.
I could have finished this book within one day but it is the contents; not engaging enough. If you are hoping to get an answer about republic of learning in a global sense, then this may not be the book for you. It was written in Australian contexts and some of the aspects may not appeal to Asian contexts of learning. Actually after reading, the phrase "republic of learning" isn't clear to me though it is explained as "sharing of ideas and people on an unprecedented scale". Perhaps will be ideal if this is operationalized in the beginning.