As the Yiddish saying goes, 'it's good to talk of overcome troubles'. There is a wonderful series of Haskins Prize Lectures under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies, in which the lecturer is asked 'to reflect on a lifetime of work as a scholar and an
institution builder, on the motives, the chance determinations, the
satisfactions (and dissatisfactions) of the life of learning, to explore
through one’s own life the larger, institutional life of scholarship.' Since the speakers have all been very successful in their chosen fields, they are often willing to reveal a good deal about the rocky path that leads to the top. Some of these lectures are downright inspiring. We will be reading and discussing at least two of these, all by historians:
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