Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning

Book Description

In this, the first biography of Abraham Flexner (1866--1959), distinguished scholar Thomas N. Bonner offers an engaging and insightful view of one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century American education. From his early, pathbreaking work in experimental primary schools to the founding of the prestigious Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Abraham Flexner's influence on American education was deep, pervasive, and enduring. In Thomas N. Bonner, Flexner has at long last found the biographer that his critical role in American education deserves.

The son of poor Jewish immigrants in Louisville, Kentucky, Flexner was raised in the Reconstruction South and educated at the Johns Hopkins University in the first decade of that institution's existence. Upon earning his degree in 1886, he returned to Louisville to found -- four years before John Dewey's Chicago "laboratory school" -- an experimental school based on progressive ideas that soon won the close attention of Harvard President Charles Eliot. After a successful nineteen-year career as a teacher and principal, he turned his attention to medical education. His 1910 survey -- known today as the Flexner Report -- stimulated much-needed, radical changes in the field and, with its emphasis on full-time clinical teaching, remains to this day the most widely cited document on how doctors best learn their profession.

Flexner's subsequent projects -- a book on medical education in Europe and a comparative study of medical education in Europe and America -- remain unsurpassed in range and insight. For fifteen years a senior officer in the Rockefeller-supported General Education Board, he helped raise money -- more than 6 billion in today's dollars -- for education in medicine and other subjects. His devastating critique of American higher education in 1936 raised the hackles of educators -- but ultimately raised important questions as well. Three years later he created and led the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, convincing Albert Einstein to accept the first appointment at the newly created institute.

Brilliant, abrasive, tenderhearted, and fundamentally a decent, farseeing man, Abraham Flexner accomplished much good in the world. His story, based on new archival sources and told with verve and wit, is sure to become the definitive work on a man and his era.

Customer Reviews:

Biography of an American visionary- Abraham Flexner.......2002-11-26

Professor Thomas Neville Bonner who is a distinguished historian and has authored several books about medical education has produced a real literary gem in "Iconoclast-Abraham Flexner and a life in learning". Abraham Flexner and his brother Simon were true giants in reforming medical education and introducing scientific medical research respectively in the USA at the beginning of 20th century. Abraham Flexner's life story is traced with marked clarity and precision of details in this remarkable book. Professor Bonner informs us about his fascination with Abraham Flexner's work in the Introduction by reading his first book "The American College" followed by the famous "Flexner Report- Medical Education in the US and Canada" published in 1910. He then takes us through Abraham's early years growing up as the youngest son of poor Jewish immigrant parents in late 19th century in Reconstruction Louisville, Kentucky, his graduation from high school, attendance at the newly opened Johns Hopkins University and coming back to Louisville at age 19 to become a teacher at his alma mater, Louisville Male High School. Thereafter he becomes principal of his own highly successful preparatory school. At age 42, he " breaks free" from Louisville and enrolls at Harvard and subsequently at Oxford in Britain and then at Berlin University in Germany. On his return back to the U.S.A, he is commissioned by Henry Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to survey 155 medical schools in North America. Flexner Report was a scathing critique of the deplorable conditions of the then extant medical schools and catapulted him into an education specialist status overnite.After being hired by the Rockefeller Foundation, Abraham Flexner was in a unique position to implement medical education reforms, start full-time plan and improve university-hospital affiliations by being able to disburse huge sums of Rockefeller largesse.Bonner points out the immense influence Abraham Flexner enjoyed being at the helm of an epochal reform movement in medical education. He was an author, a negotiator, a highly effective fund-raiser and a philanthropist. He established the Instiute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ which became an intellectual powerhouse , through the philanthropy of Louis Bamberger and was solely responsible for Albert Einstein's immigration to the USA. Abraham Flexner's long life was a multi-faceted and highly eventful one. Professor Bonner has done an admirable job in writing this thoroughly researched and definitive biography which will serve as a highly dependable reference work for future researchers. He writes with great clarity and conviction. The book reads like a novel with tremendous intrigue and drama. I recommend this book as a required reading for medical students, physicians and medical educators.General public will also find this book extremely enjoyable and informative

Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning.(Book Reviews)(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Higher Education

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Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning.(Book Reviews)(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Higher Education
John R. Thelin
Manufacturer: Ohio State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Higher Education, published by Ohio State University Press on May 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1091 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning.(Book Reviews)(Book Review)
Author: John R. Thelin
Publication: Journal of Higher Education (Refereed)
Date: May 1, 2004
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
Volume: 75 Issue: 3 Page: 362(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Customer Reviews:

FORE Y'all!.......2005-04-16

I am truly grateful to my dear friend, Dan Cruse. Frankly, I was unaware of this book until he recommended it and then lent his copy to me. It provided one of the most entertaining readings I have experienced in recent years. Yes, it is about Texas golf and golfers but I think that non-golfers will enjoy it as much I did.

Hauser has assembled and skillfully edited 52 articles, a few of which she wrote. The material includes profiles of some of the greatest players (Bolt, Couples, Crenshaw, Demaret, Hagen, Hogan, Kite, Nelson, Rawls, Trevino, Wadkins, Whitworth, and Zaharias) as well as others who also made significant contributions to competitive golf, notably Harvey Penick ("Golf's Coach of the Century" and bestselling author) and Dave Williams (whose University of Houston teams won numerous N.C.A.A. championships). Some of the finest sportswriters contributed to this collection, notably Mickey Herskowitz, Dan Jenkins, Jim Murray, Grantland Rice, and Dallas' own Blackie Sherrod. Because there is a such a rich variety of subjects, each reader will have her or his own favorites among them. My own include Jenkins' "Hogan," Herskowitz' "Golf's Teacher of the Century" (i.e. Penick), all of Part III in which several authors discuss the unique relationships between Penick and his students, Crenshaw and Kite, David Cassstevens' "Bolt's Life Is His Curse," Peter Dobreiner's "A Tribute to Demaret's Greatness," Skip Bayless' "For Merry Mex, the Laughter Only Hides the Tears," Penick's "Betsy Rawls," Nick Seitz's "Houston's Odd Couple" (i.e. Demaret and Jackie Burke, Jr.), and Gary Cartwright's "Hustle Park: Where They Ship the Pros Home C.O.D." (i.e. Tenison Park in Dallas), a public course where Dick Martin and "Titanic" Thompson (among the predatory local "amateurs") won so much money from their opponents (i.e. victims) that they could not afford to turn pro.

Those who enjoy this book are urged to check out Harvey Penick's Little Red Book: Lessons and Teachings from a Lifetime of Golf, Harvey Penick's Little Green Golf Book, and And If You Play Golf, You're My Friend: Further Reflections of a Grown Caddie; also Michael Arkush's Fairways and Dreams: Twenty-Five of the World's Greatest Golfers and the Fathers Who Inspired Them, the Sporting News' 50 Greatest Golfers : A Celebration of the All-Time Best, and The Ultimate Golf Book: A History and a Celebration of the World's Greatest Game, edited by Charles McGrath and David McCormick.

Book Description

Dubbed by Andrew Sarris "the Citizen Kane of pop musicals," recently given a high-profile release on a two-disc DVD, A Hard Day's Night, directed by Richard Lester, is viewed by Stephen Glynn as that rare event--a cheap exploitation movie that has entered the cultural canon. Following the Fab Four's adventures in New York the film established enduring individual personalities for the four Beatles, invented the pop music video and made us all "buy into" the Beatles. This radical Guide, full of detail and insight, explores its making, its music, fandom, Pop Art style, reception and influence and how the Beatles went to America to make a revolutionary movie.

Book Description

New York City, the 1960s: Inside a ramshackle studio known as The Factory, the post-war art world encountered the industrial revolution. For more than two years, Nat Finkelstein was on the scene, documenting the explosive emergence of Pop Art, a subversive spectacle created by the constantly calculating Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol: The Factory Years is an extraordinary photographic account of the twisted, the addicted, the nameless, and the famous. As a member of the club, Finkelstein discreetly captured icons in the making, including Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Allen Ginsberg, Edie Sedgwick, and Nico, along with such legends of another era as Salvador Dali and Marcel Duchamp. And, of course, Warhol himself. Engagingly sequenced by renowned design firm Pentagram, Andy Warhol: The Factory Years features Finkelstein's seminal black-and-white photographs, in addition to several series of previously unpublished color photographs that were thought lost for the past three decades. Finkelstein accompanies these striking images with vivid memories, poetic recollections, and acerbic commentary, providing both visual and intellectual insight into the culture of The Factory.

Customer Reviews:

Worth buying but only just: color photos a big plus!.......2003-11-17

It is not a little ironic that the photographic record of an artist as prolific and as wrapped up in making and taking film and photographs as Andy Warhol was suffers from a dearth of great photos of the scene of Andy Warhol, The Factory and his Superstars: For real. I mean, I would love to own a book that is just chockablock full of all of the characters, primary, secondary, tertiary and beyond who populate the pages of the many books about Andy Warhol and the Warhol Experience. Unfortunately, there just doesn't seem to be any out there. Most of the books by and about the actors in the Warhol drama are text-based with a few, often the same few, grainy, shadowy, poorly framed black & whites. This book is an attempt by one to bring together more and better photos that fans such as I desire. It is a fair effort but only just. The book is over-size or 'folio' form which is GREAT, and mostly photographs. The text is composed of an opening statement of a couple of pages of over-sized type by the author followed by lots of photographs. The essays contain some valuable information that have the ring of truth to them, but they also seem spontaneous, off-the-cuff and free associative and as a result are not easy to follow. They are more blurted out than intoned, if you get me. The book is printed in the UK on non-glossy heavy stock. I'm unsure if this was done to save money or to impart a flat, gritty, industrial feel to the photos. It is a different look than anything else out there about Warhol and I can live with it; although, I catch myself wondering what this book would look like if done on really expensive, glossy paper with top notch production values. The author explains at one point that his photos were criticized by media critics for being odd and unconventional. He states that today this is recognized as a somewhat ground-breaking and very original and excellent representation of the scene. I think that they are a bit odd and unconventional. There are some great shots there though, and the author gets some portraits of Edie Sedgewick that are heart-breakingly prescient in retrospect. There are a couple great shots of Nico too and, of course, Andy. I was pleased to see some good ones of Taylor Mead and Paul Morissey which is a refreshing change; although, I must say that it would have been cool to see how the author would have represented Andy's mother, Billy Name, and Andrea Feldman. Oh, well, I suppose one must be happy with what one can get. I believe that if you are a huge Warhol admirer such as I you would be mad to not own this. If you are curious but indifferent to Warhol and the scene, right now as I speak you can buy this book right here on Amazon for a fraction of what it is worth and you should buy it NOW. If you don't care for Andy Warhol or care about him this book will certainly not change your mind so don't bother.

new edition.......1999-11-29

the book expanded redesigned and with the addition with a complete section of color phots has been republished by canongate books ,scotland

Book Description

Not for experts only. These four popularly priced helpings of puzzle fun come straight from the Los Angeles Times. Not only are these puzzles more mainstream than the ones in the New York Times, but each book has a whopping 72 crosswords -- not the mere 50 of competing volumes. And they're one dollar less than the competition, so you'll really get more enjoyment for your money. The stay-open, lie-flat specially reinforced spiral binding makes it easier to work on the puzzles anywhere, too

Average customer rating:

Working for the Man is tough

Great Book

Starts off entertainingly. But got old fast.

A glance into the past.

A non-stop book

Microserfs
Douglas Coupland
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Coupland, Douglas | ( C ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0060987049

Amazon.com

Microserfs is not about Microsoft--it's about programmers who are searching for lives. A hilarious but frighteningly real look at geek life in the '90's, Coupland's book manifests a peculiar sense of how technology affects the human race and how it will continue to affect all of us. Microserfs is the hilarious journal of Dan, an ex-Microsoft programmer who, with his coder comrades, is on a quest to find purpose in life. This isn't just fodder for techies. The thoughts and fears of the not-so-stereotypical characters are easy for any of us to relate to, and their witty conversations and quirky view of the world make this a surprisingly thought-provoking book.

" ... just think about the way high-tech cultures purposefully protract out the adolescence of their employees well into their late 20s, if not their early 30s," muses one programmer. "I mean, all those Nerf toys and free beverages! And the way tech firms won't even call work 'the office,' but instead, 'the campus.' It's sick and evil."

Book Description

Narrated in the form of a Powerbook entry by Dan Underwood, a computer programmer for Microsoft, this state-of-the-art novel about life in the '90s follows the adventures of six code-crunching computer whizzes. Known as "microserfs," they spend upward of 16 hours a day "coding" (writing software) as they eat "flat" foods (such as Kraft singles, which can be passed underneath closed doors) and fearfully scan the company email to see what the great Bill might be thinking and whether he is going to "flame" one of them.

Seizing the chance to be innovators instead of cogs in the Microsoft machine, this intrepid bunch strike out on their own to form a high-tech start-up company named Oop! in Silicon Valley. Living together in a sort of digital flophouse --"Our House of Wayward Mobility" -- they desperately try to cultivate well-rounded lives and find love amid the dislocated, subhuman whir and buzz of their computer-driven world.

Funny, illuminating and ultimately touching, Microserfs is the story of one generation's very strange and claustrophobic coming of age.

Customer Reviews:

Working for the Man is tough.......2007-09-30

Books about the pitfalls of corporate culture can go two ways: (a) they can be winking stories that can only be appreciated by insiders or (b) they can illuminate the world at large what working for the Man entails. Coupland has done a good job of blending the two approaches.

This book subtly shows the absurdity of corporate life. The main protagonist, Dan, works and goes home to sleep. The house where he lives has a changing array of roommates, so much so that no one bothers to decorate the common areas. Coupland does a good job of portraying this sort of grinding existence. The small rewards given for getting a product out on time are accorded an almost mythical status. The relationships between people at the office show the tension and the fun that can be had by people thrown together by job choice. Later, when most of the major characters leave to join a startup, the reader sees the stress and toil that is added on top of the crushing workload in such enterprises. As before, Coupland also shows the characters having fun and relating to one another. He does what an author is supposed to do, which is to tell the story and let the reader make the judgments.

Coupland manages character development very well. All of the characters are quirky nerds. A lesser author would not have been able to make the subtle differentiations that Coupland does. Dan is a lovable loser. Karla is a Trekkie whose parental resentment seethes just below the surface. Abe is desperately trying to escape a life of nerddom by spending all his free time at the gym and bedding all the women he can. But, as the story moves along, these characters grow and mature. It is not a jarring change; but at the end of the book, the reader marvels at the differences in all these people. It is a testament to Coupland's ability as writer.

A couple of parts in the book rang false. The twist at the end felt tacked on to show how far the characters have come and look at what a big, happy family they are now. Dan's family and his life back home could also have been handled better.

Still, this is a worthy addition to the canon on books about work and toil. If you know anyone who works for a faceless corporation, they will laugh and cry at the situations presented here.

Great Book.......2007-08-07

I adore this book. I read it a few years ago & I will be reading again soon. This is my favorite Coupland book. I highly recommend it!

Starts off entertainingly. But got old fast. .......2007-07-22

Starts off entertainingly. But got old fast. It was a struggle to keep on going after finishing the first half.

A glance into the past........2007-01-13

I started reading Coupland with "Miss Wyoming." I missed out on those who lionized him as THE it-boy of young lit, and also missed out on the considerable backlash he faced. I consider this somewhat fortunate, because for me he was simply an author and nothing more or less.

I'd decided to go back and read Coupland's earlier work. That started with "Life After God" (which I liked quite a bit) and then continued (sometime later, actually, because all leisure time was erased for me for certain personal reasons) with "Microserfs."

As you probably already know, the plot involves ex-Microsoft employees who go off on their own to develop a virtual Lego program.

That's about the most you can say for a plot. "Microserfs," written as a diary of one of the coders, is a bundle of ideas and thoughts and theories. Similar to "Life After God." But while those ideas resonated with me, in "Microserfs" I couldn't always identify with the characters. I could also see why there was a little hostility toward Coupland. Occasionally the ostentation in this book is suffocating. He's writing about self-confessed geeks, but there's an undertone of "I'm smarter than you, hipper than you, I know more than you, and I am a pop-culture God."

There's a feeling of emptiness for me with this book. We are essentially stuck with a bunch of uber-smart super-geeks who have the emotional maturity of five year olds. Would you want to be with these people? Personally, I don't think I would. They're smart, and sometimes very funny, but often you want to tell them to just shut the hell up already. At some point you wish their concerns were more substantial than cereal, "Star Trek" and name brands. Part of the point is that they've isolated themselves so much they haven't experienced much in the real world, but their self-obsession can become tiring.

The more fascinating issue is the time this novel captures -- that a-computer-in-every-home period when Bill Gates was still a mythical genius, and the Internet (which is actually dismissed here) started to change our lives.

These characters are so emotionally void that it's hard to truly get to know them outside of their obsessions and obvious issues (religious parents, closeted homosexuality, etc.). Also, each character -- all of whom want a "life" and feel lonely -- progress along the same lines and discover themselves in the same way: namely by finding someone of the opposite sex (or in one case of the same sex) and falling in love. It almost seems ironically simple: you're alone, you have no life outside of computers and math, so the easiest way to discover happiness is to find someone who's exactly like you who you can have intercourse with. Hey, maybe world peace is around the corner...

So why do I give this book four stars? Because Coupland is so incredibly talented that even a semi-misfire like this is anything but boring. Throughout this book he will make you laugh, and he will reel off some little bon mot that will have you smiling and nodding your head in recognition. Unfortunately, the book is just a bit too long and a bit too overpacked with this chatter.

The lack of a plot forces Coupland to dash some seriousness onto an otherwise frivolous tone and roll out one of the most sentimental endings I've ever read. It felt very awkward to me, but maybe it's appropriate for such a diffusely written novel.

I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as Coupland's other novels, but I'm not disappointed to have read it, and I look forward to reading its pseudo-sequel.

A non-stop book.......2007-01-09

How many books I have read in the last year in less than a week. They can be count with one hand fingers. Microserfs is one of them. Good story, a very interesting environment, a good way of using the different fonts, character sizes.

I've been looking for this book in Spanish in many different bookstores, and on online shops, but it was out of stock. Finally I found it on a public library and I literally eat it from page 1 till the end.

Now I have re-read it in English and I can only say that Wicho, Nacho and Alvy where again on the right way.

Average customer rating:

Microserfs
Douglas Coupland
Manufacturer: HarperPerennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Microserfs
Douglas Coupland
Manufacturer: Flamingo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0002244047

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Microserfs
Douglas Coupland
Manufacturer: Flamingo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0002253119

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Microserfs
Douglas Coupland
Manufacturer: Flamingo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Microserfs
Robert Ludlum
Manufacturer: Harper Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
ASIN: B000NE8QHC

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Microserfs
Douglas Coupland
Manufacturer: Regan Books/Harper-collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UKQDR4

Review essay: Canada in a Coma.(Douglas Coupland books) (book review): An article from: American Review of Canadian Studies

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Review essay: Canada in a Coma.(Douglas Coupland books) (book review): An article from: American Review of Canadian Studies
Jefferson Faye
Manufacturer: Association for Canadian Studies in the United States
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008IK9VE
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from American Review of Canadian Studies, published by Association for Canadian Studies in the United States on September 22, 2001. The length of the article is 4102 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Review essay: Canada in a Coma.(Douglas Coupland books) (book review)
Author: Jefferson Faye
Publication: American Review of Canadian Studies (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2001
Publisher: Association for Canadian Studies in the United States
Volume: 31 Issue: 3 Page: 501(11)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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MICROSERFS
DOUGLAS COUPLAND
Manufacturer: HARPER COLLINS TRADE DIVISION
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KUG8Y2

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MICROSERFS
DOUGLAS COUPLAND
Manufacturer: HarperPerennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8Q386

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