Professors, Politics, and Pop

I read this book six years ago so I don't remember the details, but I couldn't believe it hadn't been reviewed yet. This is one of the best of a rare genre: historical / intellectual reportage. Part journalist, part professor, part papparazi, Wiener takes his formidable intellect out of the confines of the classroom and turns it to subjects as diverse as the CIA and the inter/intra-departmental wranglings at UCI during the explosion of deconstruction theory. Wiener is like Noam Chomsky with some of the pomp and melodrama sifted out. He does ring of Chomsky insofar as you'll be freaked out after you read the book cause it forces you to see how little we know (or care) about all the string-pulling that goes on behind the scenes by the powers that be. Great book -- there should be more like them.