Pass the Cherries: Review of Twilight of the Dons
3 days ago
- #intellectual history
- #Oxbridge
- #higher education
- Terry Eagleton's memoir criticizes his Cambridge supervisor as lacking ideas despite wide-ranging knowledge, reflecting a broader skepticism about mid-20th century Oxbridge dons.
- Colin Kidd's 'Twilight of the Dons' follows a declinist narrative, arguing that dons enjoyed high prestige from 1950-1980 before a collapse in confidence during Thatcherism, harming British culture.
- Kidd defends the golden age of dons as the 'nation’s higher conscience,' contrasting with Noel Annan's view that they deserved their decline, and sees Oxbridge now as serving an international elite.
- While Kidd's research and analysis are praised, questions arise about scope—focusing on elite Oxbridge ignores other universities and lesser dons—and whether change, not decline, better describes the shift.
- The review suggests that dons today remain worldly, adapting to new contexts like entrepreneurship and media, and that future generations may view the current era as another golden age.