… W.M. Spackman: An Imperfect Critic | Intercollegiate Studies Institute: Educating for Liberty. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If ever a review convinced me to never pick up the book under review, it is this one. Some of the stuff about translation is correct enough, but nothing of Spackman's that is quoted strikes me as particularly insightful. Even cranks have to prove interesting.
At a glance, Logan doesn't make much of a case for the book.
ReplyDeleteI read it last year, much of it, anyway. I thought that Spackman was quite good on Tolstoy and plausible on late James. He was pithy on education and education reform. It is not a book that I feel compelled to go out and get for a friend, as I might Bernard Knox's Essays Ancient and Modern, to name one example. Yet I don't regret the purchase. If you see it in a bookstore, you'd do well to look at the essays on Tolstoy, James, and curriculum reform, and see what you think.
Thanks, George. I'll see if I can track it down.
ReplyDelete