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A review by letitiaharmon
God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America by Hanna Rosin
1.0
Since I could essentially write an entire thesis inspired by this book, I will attempt to keep my comments brief for the sake of this review, but I apologize in advance for verbosity.
Rosin's diatribe on the recently founded Patrick Henry college unfortunately alienated me even in the introduction, where home education is described as "a relic of the age of separatism and retreat." I nevertheless attempted to suspend my judgment until I had read the thing cover to cover.
Having done so, I will emphatically agree with the author on a key point: Patrick Henry was a failed experiment, based on a not-so-bad idea. However, Rosin's methods for arriving at this conclusion in no way resemble the stellar journalism for which she is praised in the reviews of this work. Her statements are broad, sweeping, and demeaning to a large scope of people belonging to factions and segments that she has never met nor interviewed. Her strategic placement of words like "pretension" or significant emphasis on particular randomly placed quotes leaves little doubt as to her bias, which she is certainly allowed, but which overwhelms the nature of her reporting.
While easily delving into the ridiculous aspects of this institution, she simultaneously seems to overlook good qualities in her students, simply because they are so strange. She speaks condescendingly of a boy who is grateful to God for everything, choosing not to contrast him with the bitching, whiny, entitled teenager Americans have come to expect, even while she subtlely questions the morality of boys who choose to play the game Halo.
Ultimately my foremost criticism of this book is simply that it lumps all Evangelical Christians into this particular bubble that she experienced in a very tiny microchosm of conservative religious educators. I would simply advise readers of this: when encountering the author's broad and libelous statements regarding all Evangelical Conservative Christians, keep this in mind: I was home schooled, I am politically conservative, I am an Evangelical Christian, and I disagree completely with Michael Farris' lifestyle, philosophy, and political agenda. The tendency of the liberal audience who will read this book is to assume we are out to get you and destroy life as you know it. Just trust me on this: we're not.
Rosin's diatribe on the recently founded Patrick Henry college unfortunately alienated me even in the introduction, where home education is described as "a relic of the age of separatism and retreat." I nevertheless attempted to suspend my judgment until I had read the thing cover to cover.
Having done so, I will emphatically agree with the author on a key point: Patrick Henry was a failed experiment, based on a not-so-bad idea. However, Rosin's methods for arriving at this conclusion in no way resemble the stellar journalism for which she is praised in the reviews of this work. Her statements are broad, sweeping, and demeaning to a large scope of people belonging to factions and segments that she has never met nor interviewed. Her strategic placement of words like "pretension" or significant emphasis on particular randomly placed quotes leaves little doubt as to her bias, which she is certainly allowed, but which overwhelms the nature of her reporting.
While easily delving into the ridiculous aspects of this institution, she simultaneously seems to overlook good qualities in her students, simply because they are so strange. She speaks condescendingly of a boy who is grateful to God for everything, choosing not to contrast him with the bitching, whiny, entitled teenager Americans have come to expect, even while she subtlely questions the morality of boys who choose to play the game Halo.
Ultimately my foremost criticism of this book is simply that it lumps all Evangelical Christians into this particular bubble that she experienced in a very tiny microchosm of conservative religious educators. I would simply advise readers of this: when encountering the author's broad and libelous statements regarding all Evangelical Conservative Christians, keep this in mind: I was home schooled, I am politically conservative, I am an Evangelical Christian, and I disagree completely with Michael Farris' lifestyle, philosophy, and political agenda. The tendency of the liberal audience who will read this book is to assume we are out to get you and destroy life as you know it. Just trust me on this: we're not.