Bok takes an opposite tack from recent critics who have faulted universities for their professors' supposed withdrawal into ivory towers remote from the "real world." Instead, he says, higher education has been all too subject to real-world pressures in recent decades as government grants have diminished and scholars have turned increasingly to strings-attached corporate funding.

Nor does Bok spare the universities themselves. There, he asserts, too many scholars view their research merely in terms of their own advancement within a field, and are therefore reluctant to blaze trails in difficult new areas that offer little prestige.

The net effect of these market forces, Bok argues, is profoundly detrimental:

Although the potential exists to repond to almost every issue on our formidable national agenda, the readiness to do so does not...[M]ost universities continue to do their least impressive work on the very subjects where society's need for greater knowledge and better education is most acute.

As true as this may be, though, Bok's book suffers as well as profits from his rigorous scholarly approach. This is clearly evident in the writing itself, which, while not overly long-winded, is dry and almost entirely free of the anecdotes that spice the theorizing of such educational leaders as A. Bartlett Giamatti, Yale's late president. Many of Bok's analyses are clearly born of personal experience, and one would think that after two decades in office, he must have some tales to recount that would help illustrate his points. If so, however, they are not to be found in Universities and the Future of America.

Bok's shortcomings are most obvious when he attempts to move from describing problems to prescibing solutions. Readers expecting a visionary plan for rechanneling economic and social pressures to push universities in the right direction will be disappointed by Bok's list of stopgaps. It is as though his natural cautiousness has discouraged him from putting forth any daring ideas that might later prove flawed. Instead, he sticks to time-worn exhortations: Schools should lobby vigorously for government funding. Administrators and government officials should work together to develop "effective leadership." Trustees should be more aggressive in setting priorities.

As Harvard's own stewards ready themselves to choose a new president, they would do well to give Universities and the Future of America a careful read. Or perhaps two careful reads: The first time around, they should read it as an unclouded look at the challenges that will face the University's next president. And the second time, they should read it as a barometer of both the merits and the shortcomings of the University's current president.