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This 1998 publication, significantly from The New Press and not a major publisher, is a collection of essays documenting the invasion of academic research by the government, specifically the CIA and military, and by business.

The culprit, as with the corrupt US Congress that is devoted to lobbies, not the people it is supposed to represent, is money.

In exchange for money, schools have and will create "chairs" in this or that area of study with the understanding that the person holding the position will be devoting time to doing research that the government or business want done. In exactly the same way that big donors to political campaigns expect to benefit from the work in office of the candidate they are buying, er, I mean supporting, large grants to universities do not come without strings that determine what is to be done on campus.

While all of the essays in the book are interesting and none of them long, the final essay, The New Corporate Yen for Scholarship is a must read even if the other essays are neglected. Case after case of business buying scholarship are cited all of them pre-1998. Now, as I write in 2024, the situation is certainly no better with no attempt to reverse the trend having come in the intervening 26 years. And education is not alone as we see this or that brand name given to a sports stadium. The most outrageous thing mentioned is that businesses will take the results of the research, go on to make a great profit from it and give none of that to the school, while at the same time patenting everything they can so neither the school or those who did the research have any claim to the work done. Thus does the public, the students who pay to attend college, subsidize big business.

This book is not an eye opener, since I think most Americans, certainly all who are either students or faculty at any big university, well know how the bread is buttered. If any eyes were opened in 1998, nothing came of it. At least this collection of essays is an example of uncorrupted education, for those who want to know the history and details of how higher American learning institutions have been bought.