(publication date: February 2003)

    If Kenneth Lasson's description of the American academy is accurate, and it is, I'll get into trouble if I say anything nice about his book. So be it. Trembling in the Ivory Tower: Excesses in the Pursuit of Truth and Tenure is a wonderful work – relentlessly serious in its condemnation of scholarly gobbledygook, radical feminism, and political correctness, but also reaching 10 on the hilarity index. As I read Trembling, I was reminded of another Baltimorean, H. L. Mencken, who laughed (and made others laugh) as he chronicled the decline of civilization. Although a white male, Lasson represents the most underrepresented group in today's multicultural universities: those who care about the English language and rational thought.

    It is rare that a really important book is also very witty, easily readable, and fun. With Trembling in the Ivory Tower, Kenneth Lasson has pulled off a real coup. This book will be talked about in the groves of academe as well as around the water coolers. Read it and weep, but laugh out loud, too.

     Like Martin Anderson's Impostors in the Temple, Kenneth Lasson's Trembling in the IvoryTower shows that our colleges and universities are corrupt, and are becoming ever less congenial to teaching and learning. Trembling Tower, however, is unique in showing that faculty members' major daily preoccupation – obtaining tenure and advancement through fraudulent publications – as well as the folkways that fall under the category of political correctness, constitute the very matrix of this corruption. This book is significant also because Lasson is a card-carrying member of the Liberal tribe that is solely responsible for the state of modern American academic life. And there's more. By leavening deadly serious topics with learned humor, as he does in Trembling, Lasson has not only provided an enjoyable book to read, but proves that having a law degree is no bar to good sense and good humor.

     This book deftly deflates both the pompous and petty in American higher education, and honors those who seek to maintain (against increasing odds) the established norms of Western civilization and rational discourse. Lasson teaches us the value of true intellectual diversity on campus, as opposed to the politically correct diversity promoted by radical feminists and deconstructionist faculties to the exclusion of individualistic values, historical perspective, and scientific method. A most welcome challenge to the PC-Thought-Police.

     Can such academic travesties as multiculturalism, deconstruction, and political correctness actually be funny on occasion? In Trembling in the Ivory Tower, Professor Kenneth Lasson amply proves they can. In his blistering examination of academic fads and foibles, hidden treats include a hilarious disquisition on the law review essay with the greatest number of footnotes ever, and on the Mine Eyes Glazeth Over (MEGO) syndrome. Lasson's wit illuminates his sometimes acerbic truth-telling, painting a full and fascinating picture of what happens when academe abandons its once proud motto: "the truth shall set you free," and replaces it with dreary litanies recited by devotees of multiculturalism and political correctness. Filled with courage and common sense, Lasson's tribute to rational argument sparkles.

 
    With passion, clarity, "smoking guns," and humor, University of Baltimore law professor Kenneth Lasson joins the few academic liberals who have impeached American higher education for academic high crimes and misdemeanors. Lasson provides evidence beyond reasonable doubt that many college administrators and faculty are guilty of supporting political correctness, radical feminism, and trivial scholarship.

    Employing an exemplary sense of humor, the multi-faceted Professor Lasson exceeds his usual high intellectual standards with his latest book, Trembling in the Ivory Tower. With wide-ranging scope, and good solid common sense, he skewers academe and its many foibles. And he does so using a clear and delightful writing style that, heaven knows, I wish other academicians could imitate.

    With wit as well as insight, Trembling in the Ivory Tower diagnoses academe's self-inflicted wounds and offers suggestions for how the patient might recover.  Given the enormous impact of the intellectual class on American society, no topic could be more timely or more important.

    Even without Lasson's measured and witty commentary, his exhaustive and entertaining evidence would have the practitioners of academicism, radical feminism, and PCism laughed out of court. But they're not in court, where facts and truth, analysis and argument, reason and commonsense prevail (usually); they're in colleges and universities where such principles no longer obtain (often). Higher education has been politicized and its politics is radical. Lasson's modest suggestions – civility and tolerance and a dose of Western Civ – will help to restore sanity and balance, a sense of humor and moderation, and perhaps even some amiability.

    Irreverent, humorous and on target! Trembling in the Ivory Tower is all of that.  The book brilliantly points out the excesses and faux pas committed by even well-intentioned individuals who are concerned with issues of justice and equity in society, in general, and academia, in particular.  Of greatest value is Lasson's often self-deprecating description of the over-abundance and intemperance found in much of the academic literature.  A thick skin may be a prerequisite for some readers.