Harvard Rules: Lawrence Summers and the Battle for the World's Most Powerful University – Sex, Ambition, and Elite Power at America's Institution

by Richard Bradley

It is the richest, most influential, most powerful university in the world, but at the beginning of 2001, Harvard was in crisis. Students complained that a Harvard education had grown mediocre. Professors charged that the university cared more about money than about learning. Harvard may have possessed a $19 billion endowment, but had it lost its soul? The members of Harvard's governing board knew that they had to act. And so they made a bold pick for Harvard's twenty-seventh former Treasury Secretary and intellectual prodigy economist Lawrence Summers. Although famously brilliant, Summers was a high-stakes gamble. In the 1990s he had crafted American policies to stabilize the global economy, quietly becoming one of the world's most powerful men. But while many admired Summers, his critics called him elitist, imperialist, and arrogant beyond measure. Today Larry Summers sits atop a university in a state of upheaval, unsure of what it stands for and where it is going. At stake is not just the future of Harvard University but also the way in which Harvard students see the world -- and the manner in which they lead it. Written despite the university's official opposition, Harvard Rules uncovers what really goes on behind Harvard's storied walls -- the politics, sex, ambition, infighting, and intrigue that run rampant within the world's most important university.

Genres: Biography, Education, Nonfiction

416 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2005

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Bradley's first book, American Son, was published under the name Richard Blow.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book, learned a bit about what not to do as I rise in the ranks of Higher Ed. I also learned some interesting facts about Harvard and how the university functions and recent changes to the school. Curious to learn more about the institution as a whole.

[Joseph N.]

This is the message I get over and over when I've read about Harvard over the years. It's a place for ambitious, driven, and overworked strivers, among both students and faculty. And in the middle of it all is a lot of overbearing self-congratulation, patting of one's own back, and sneering at those of us who have fewer arms, legs, and neurons than those within the Harvard community.

Reading it, I was reminded of the quote erroneously attributed to Peter Drucker: "If you can't measure it you can't manage it." But in Harvard's case, as is the case with many centers of ambition, if you can't measure it, it's not worth considering. (I am particularly struck by the similarity of the attitude of the young John Nash in 'A Beautiful Mind'. He did not pursue whatever intrigued him, but only problems that would bolster his reputation, and win him fame. The irony is that the Nash Equilibrium, an idea he tossed out and didn't do anything with after, and which was forgotten for a long time, finally won him that fame.)

At Harvard, there is a certain contradictory attitude in their work ethic: when faculty at any university get tenure, they are required to produce nothing, they are simply freed to think and work on 'big ideas.'

But the undergraduate students are driven mercilously, and are only taught by grad students. (I do not know if that has changed since this book was written; I am open to hearing from those in the Harvard community.) Most of my best ideas occurred when I was half-asleep in bed, drinking my morning coffee, or having a glass of wine at night. The word 'school' is related to the ancient Greek word for 'leisure.'

So the book is a critique of Larry Summers, but in reality, it is a critique of the Harvard culture. Harvard was founded in the middle of the dishonesty (and even corruption), greed, exploitiveness, and sanctimony of the Pilgrims, who just knew they were superior to everyone else. That snobbism continued through the Brahmins of the 19th century and into today. Despite the movement from hereditary privilege to the peerage of an elite meritocracy, the snobbishness continues.

400 years later, those traditions seem to continue, and even expand.

[cara · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's a load of frustrating stuff here, but the main issue is that Bradley undersells how totally dim and evil Larry Summers is, and how utterly responsible he's been for much deep and lasting suffering. In general, Summers does not get pilloried nearly enough, and so this one breathless and tepid book is *something,* I guess. But. Ugh. (Unrelatedly, there's a weird bit of antisemitism on the author's part when he milks the awkward relationship between Summers and Peter J. Gomes. Pretty sure the issue was not that Summers is Jewish, but that he is an awful person.)

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason I find the saga of Laurence Summers fascinating. If you care about higher ed, you should probably care about what's happening at Harvard.

[Amir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Learned a lot about higher ed institutions and
Harvard (spec).