Appreciation …

… The Gadfly | Commonweal Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Having established himself as a national voice, Lukacs began to receive attractive offers to join Ivy League faculties in the 1960s. He did not succumb. Although he occasionally taught at prestigious institutions elsewhere (Princeton, Johns Hopkins, the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts, the University of Pennsylvania), he remained at Chestnut Hill College until he retired in 1994, supplementing his income with his part-time teaching at nearby La Salle.

A scholar and intellectual of high standards and impeccable integrity, Lukacs was completely content to teach at these modest Catholic colleges. He always despised the empty plumage of academe, its titles and honors and pecking orders. He lamented that most of his colleagues had abandoned historical scholarship for what he called “historianship” (i.e., careerism).