Adam Ulam was one of the greatest academic writers of the 20th Century. His primary focus was the Soviet Union and nineteenth century Russia. This excellent book, however, looks at the United States.
THE FALL seems ill-organized, but it is a masterpiece as it tells of the improbabilities transpiring during the 1960s: The contribution of American academia to the mess of that decade and carrying on until Jonathan Gruber recently made the problem obvious. For himself Ulam always maintained his distance from politics and power. He would remain "on tap" rather than "on top."
This volume is Harvard centric which was not in the middle of student movements, not advancing revolutionary theories, not advocating feminism or liberation and never on the barricades fighting the pigs and shouting down counterrevolutionaries. To the degree those activities came to Harvard, they were inconveniences for the establishment. Ulam tells about walking past demonstrators advocating adulterated theory. He suppressed the impulse for immediate education, telling why the advocacy was wrong and how other theories would lead to nothing. He could do it in English or Russian. There are insights how the establishment, protected and active, responded. One concession to students was allowing their participation in faculty and other professorial administrative bodies. Long, boring meetings became longer and more boring.

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Book details

• Format Hardcover
• Pages217 pages
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN100912050209
• ISBN139780912050201