In plato’s cave

In this candid and delightful memoir, Alvin Kernan recalls his life as a student, professor, provost, and dean during turbulent decades of change in the hallowed halls of Columbia, Williams, Oxford, Yale, and Princeton. His vividly remembered account is a unique personal story and more-it is also a history of what has been won, and lost, in the culture wars of the second half of the twentieth century.