Forgive me for posting two reviews of my last book, which was published on January 20, 2020.
As I explained in the previous post, I did not see either of these reviews until long after they appeared in print. Slaying Goliath appeared just as COVID was beginning to make its mark, only a few weeks before it was recognized as a global pandemic. In writing the book, I wanted to celebrate the individuals and groups that demonstrated bravery in standing up to the powerful, richly endowed forces that were determined to privatize their public schools through charters or vouchers.
America’s public schools had educated generations of young people who created the most powerful, most culturally creative, most dynamic nation on earth. Yet there arose a cabal of billionaires and their functionaries who were determined to destroy public schools and turn them into privately-managed schools and to turn their funding over to private and religious schools.
Having worked for many years inside the conservative movement, I knew what was happening. I saw where the money was coming from, and I knew that politicians had been won over (bought) by campaign contributions.
Publishing a book at the same time as a global pandemic terrifies the world and endangers millions of people is bad timing, for sure.
But the most hurtful blow to me and the book was a mean-spirited review in The New York Times Book Review. The NYTBR is unquestionably the most important review that a book is likely to get. Its readership is huge. A bad review is a death knell. That’s the review I got. The reviewer, not an educator or education journalist, hated the book. Hated it. I found her review hard to read because she seemed to reviewing a different book.
I was completely unaware that Bob Shepherd reviewed the review. I didn’t see it until two or three years after it appeared. He wrote what I felt, but I, as the author, knew that it was very bad form to complain, and I did not.
So I happily post Bob Shepherd’s review of the review here.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I loved the book and found its perspective critical to the dialogue needed to get public schools back to equilibrium. Today, the Episcopal Church recognizes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who stated that the problem with civil society, in that case Nazi Germany, is it is too often unwilling to acknowledge the evil that is with us. Evil seems to be a concept we hesitate to identify because it is considered such an extreme human behavior. However, the intention of those who oppose public schools and their reasoning for doing so has to be identified as a malfeasance that would do unimaginable harm to our society. Keep sounding the alarm!
Amen
Bob, did you by any chance send this to the Times?
No. Like an idiot, I didn’t. I should have.
I won’t stipulate to the idiot part, but yeah, you should have. It’s a marvelous takedown that, frankly, inspires envy in me. When I was a student at Hampshire College, the University of Massachusetts Professor of History Stephen Oates was accused of plagiarism, in an article in the Times, in his generally highly regarded biography of Abraham Lincoln. I was working at Hampshire’s writing center at the time; my supervisor had been one of Oates’s doctoral candidates. He wrote a lengthy refutation of the article. His screed was never published, as I suspect yours would not have been either. In the end, the Times has its line, I guess.
In any event, thank you for an edifying read.
Thanks, Mark. Means a lot to me.
I doubt that they would have published it without major revision. I didn’t pull my punches, and the NYT is notoriously pro-Deform.
Thanks, so, Diane, for the gift of you and your books. And thanks for sharing this. When I read that hatchet job in the NY Times, I was furious. The Times seems too often as though it were a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bill Gates propaganda machine.
I wish it were more widely understood that Slaying Goliath, while important as a book celebrating the Resistance to the attack on U.S. public education by oligarchs, is much more than just that. It is a roadmap for Resistance generally, against the forces undermining democracy and democratic institutions.
So, readers of this blog, if you have not yet gotten a copy of Slaying Goliath, treat yourself. It’s the most important book you’ll read this year.
Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools: Ravitch, Diane: 9780525564768: Amazon.com: Books
The book is also available as an audiobook from Audible!
Bob you always educate me. As much history as I have studied, it never dawned o me that the KKK might have been the cause of so many people not having sheets back then. Leave it to supply and demand: If the Klan has all the sheets, there will be a shortage.
ROFL
I clicked on the link to Bob’s review of the review and read it again. I say again because it wasn’t until I reached LIKE at the end that I saw I’d already read it before and reblogged his review to one of my blogs that focuses on teaching and public education.
That said, I’ve never had a positive opinion of the New York Times book review section. Most of the time I ignore the NYT book reviews and if I read one that bashes a book, my first thought is, that must be a pretty good book. I’ve even read a few tof those that got a negative review from the NYT, and enjoyed them, disagreeing with the NYT critic.
A book review on the NYT is one person’s opinion.
I’m pretty sure that the NYT has reviewed most if not all of Anchee Min’s books so I’ve read those reviews since we were married for about 16 years and are still friends. Our daughter refused to take sides when we divorced so we didn’t let the end of our marriage become toxic. Didn’t want to upset our daughter,who we called Little Mama, when she was growing up.
When she graduated from high school and went to Stanford, moving out, she said, I’m not LIttle Mama anymore. You are both on your own now. As a child, she seemed to work harder being our parent then us being hers.
Anyway, I think the NYT focuses more on negative reviews instead of positive ones, putting an emphasis on critic, instead of the merits of a literary work.
A critic is defined as “a person who expresses an unfavorable opinion of something.”
The NYT may publish more negative book reviews than positive ones so the paper lives up to being that kind of critic.
Still, even a negative review in the NYT may be overcome, but traditional publishers tend not to bother doing what it would take to achieve that kind of reversal. Traditional publishers seem stuck in the old world before the internet and Amazon, when it comes to promoting books. They have small promotion budgets and most of that money goes to the 2% of authors that sell most of the books.
It’s estimated that the US has about 60,000,000 avid readers (and even more that may read a book or two a year instead of dozens). I’m sure that Amazon ADs reach more of those readers, than how read NYT book reviews.
I just read that the NYT has less than 10 million online subscribers and 660,000 print subscribers. How many of those subscribers read NYT book reviews?
Traditional publishers seem stuck in the old world before the internet and Amazon, when it comes to promoting books.
Almost no one gets any real promotion. It’s do or die on the initial distribution to booksellers.
Exactly the case. It’s an incredibly backward industry. And typically, the only stuff that gets published these days is by folks who are already famous for something else (so, Taylor Swift would have no prob selling her novel) and ones with millions of YouTube followers (you know, those brilliant folks). So, both authors and the reading public get the shaft.
History (recent, that is) has certainly proven Diane to be correct.
Including, it could be argued, that the bumbling, destructive efforts of public education attackers like Obama and Cuomo etc… contributed to the rise of Idiot-in-Chief Donald Trump.
The truth hurts.
And, to those Democrats who chipped away at the very bedrock of our democracy, our public schools, well, now we are reaping the chaos you felt so compelled to sow. Shame on you and not just the conservatives who voted for #45.
Well. That was quite an article! Thanks.
Great takedown of Paul’s review, Bob.
I especially love the quote from Weiss [Duncan’s chief of staff], it drips with unintended irony! ”The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation”– she could have stopped right there!