I was reminded of David Lodge's academic satire Small World, and I toss off this bit on the function of academic reviews:

"Arthur, since you raise the question of the UNESCO chair — "
"I didn't raise it, Siegfried, you did."
"It would be hypocritical of me to pretend that I would not be interested."
"I'm not surprised, Siegfried."
"We have always been good friends, Arthur, have we not? Ever since I reviewed the fourth volume of your Collected Papers in the New York Review of Books."
"Yes, Siegfried, it was a nice review. And nice talking to you."

What got me thinking on this was a little post on Crooked Timber by Henry Farrell on Douglas Feith's new book, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (which, by the way, I have not read), which Farrell titles "Faint Praise and Damnations" because, I gather, the four blurbs on the back of the book include three who disagree with at least some of Feith's conclusions. So Farrell quotes Jean Edward Smith's blurb as evidence of faint praise:

The fact that the policy to which he contributed was flawed from the outset in no way diminishes the historical importance of this firsthand account.

Douglas Feith has written a model memoir: fair-minded, objective, and without rancor.

Anyone can get praise from people he agrees with. It is much tougher to get it from your critics. Since Farrell, usually one of the more thoughtful lefty bloggers, is indulging in mere partisan bitchiness, I will indulge in a bit myself (yeah, yeah, like I need an excuse). Farrell notes that there was some unhappiness at Georgetown over Feith's two-year appointment in the foreign service school there. He does not mention that the story he links to, in the International Herald Tribune, makes the Georgetown faculty look a bit like a bunch of adolescent asses. The story notes that Mark Lance, a philosophy professor, got together a letter objecting to Feith's appointment signed by 72 professors, administrators, and grad students at Georgetown.

"I'm not going to shake hands with the guy if he's introduced to me," said Mark Lance, a philosophy professor who teaches nonviolence in the program on Justice and Peace and who organized the protest. "And if he asks why, I'll say because in my view you're a war criminal and you have no place on this campus."

The dispute can be read as – take your pick – an explosion of fury at a disastrous war, an illustration of the pettiness of academic politics or evidence of Feith's talent for attracting invective.

Professors in the school were widely opposed. But most who signed the letter came from other disciplines, where the differences from the Pentagon in bureaucratic culture may be pronounced.

One is Susan Terrio, who has appointments in anthropology and French and whose résumé lists several writings about French chocolate makers: "From Master Chocolatiers Today: Bayonne and the Basque Coast." She complained that Feith's appointment was "presented as a fait accompli." She did, however, say she would shake hands with him.

Terrio said Feith had "defended the use of torture in public lectures," though she acknowledged, "I can't point to a specific document," and said that characterization came from Lance, the protest organizer.

Lance said he was relying on a Newsweek article that said Feith had advocated "new and tougher interrogation techniques."

"I should be more careful," Lance said. "He hasn't specifically advocated torture. He's supported legal changes that make the use of torture easier."
.        .        .
Charles King, a professor at the foreign policy school, objected to the appointment but declined to sign the protest letter, because "I thought there were a lot of inaccuracies."

Since I am being snarky about Georgetown, let me be more generally snarky. Last year, the New YorK Times wrote a piece on a mutually cancelled contract between Feith and the National Defense University. It was signed by Lt. Gen. Michael Dunn of the Air Force when he was president of the university, but there was a parting of ways under a new president. Dunn blasted the article in a letter the New York Times declined to print, and he remarked:

Finally and most importantly . . . you imply that NDU ought to avoid controversy in its selection of professors and that choosing someone less qualified might better serve the interests of our nation ... in a time of war. I dispute this point. It might be OK in civilian universities. But our future military and diplomatic leaders deserve the best. And that is what we sought with the selection of Mr. Feith.