100 books like In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower

By Davarian L. Baldwin,

Here are 100 books that In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower fans have personally recommended if you like In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991

Katherine Rye Jewell Author Of Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio

From my list on the political side of music scenes.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interests as a historian involve examining how Americans organize to change policy or politics through affiliations beyond political parties and, by extension, thinking about how culture is made and supported through institutions and businesses. These messy networks and relationships ultimately define how we relate to one another in the U.S. Indie music scenes are one way to trace all of these relationships, from federal policy governing radio stations and what goes out over the airwaves to the contours of local music scenes, to the business of record labels, to ordinary DJs and music fans trying to access information and new sounds that they love.

Katherine's book list on the political side of music scenes

Katherine Rye Jewell Why did Katherine love this book?

No list of books on the indie music scenes of the 1980s is complete without this classic tale of the rise of commercial tensions regarding indie rock bands.

Music offered a form of rebellion against conformity – and punk challenged the corporate music industry of the 1970s with its DIY code and aesthetics. But in its wake, new forms of rebellion and alternative pathways to success emerged – at least for a time.

These bands that Azerrad chronicles became the giants of this alternative scene, and they were the sound of college radio. As Azerrad writes, corporate labels co-opted new wave in the early 1980s, “but they couldn’t co-opt punk’s infrastructure—the local underground scenes, labels, radio stations, fanzines, and stores. They, perhaps more so than any particular musical style, are punk’s most enduring legacy.” 

By Michael Azerrad,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Our Band Could Be Your Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Finally in paperback, the story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan Eighties - when a small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio stations and other subversives re-energised American rock with punk rock's d-I-y credo and created music that was deeply personal, often brilliant, always challenging and immensely influential. OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE is a sweeping chronicle of music, politics, drugs, fear, loathing and faith that is already being recognized as an indie rock classic in its own right.

Among the legendary bands featured are: Black Flag, the Minutement, Mission…


Book cover of Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture

Katherine Rye Jewell Author Of Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio

From my list on the political side of music scenes.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interests as a historian involve examining how Americans organize to change policy or politics through affiliations beyond political parties and, by extension, thinking about how culture is made and supported through institutions and businesses. These messy networks and relationships ultimately define how we relate to one another in the U.S. Indie music scenes are one way to trace all of these relationships, from federal policy governing radio stations and what goes out over the airwaves to the contours of local music scenes, to the business of record labels, to ordinary DJs and music fans trying to access information and new sounds that they love.

Katherine's book list on the political side of music scenes

Katherine Rye Jewell Why did Katherine love this book?

Before getting to radio, alternative scenes came together in the 1970s and 1980s through informal networks of shared tapes, backyard concerts, and zines. These scenes had politics all to themselves, which revolved around concepts of “authenticity.”

Duncombe’s book not only captures the range and meaning of zines in all their forms, but it unravels the deeper meaning of these DIY publications. As he writes, “Zinesters believe that authenticity can be found only in a person unshackled by the contrivances of society.” Zines thus offered the purest expressions of self, in theory, but soon, the zine scene developed its own codes of conduct and traditions – practices though that would inform the sound and practice of college radio.

What I love about this book is that it delves into theory (zinesters were like Rousseau? Who knew?!) but remains accessible, using the theory only to enlighten underappreciated aspects of zine culture.

By Stephen Duncombe,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Notes From Underground as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

An engaging and scholastic presentation of zines and modern culture

Much history and theory is uncovered here in the first comprehensive study of zine publishing. From their origins in early 20th century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in 1960s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock, Stephen Duncombe pays full due to the political importance of zines as a vital network of popular culture. He also analyzes how zines measure up to their utopian and escapist outlook in achieving fundamental social change. Packed with extracts and illustrations, he provides a useful overview of the…


Book cover of Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture

Katherine Rye Jewell Author Of Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio

From my list on the political side of music scenes.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interests as a historian involve examining how Americans organize to change policy or politics through affiliations beyond political parties and, by extension, thinking about how culture is made and supported through institutions and businesses. These messy networks and relationships ultimately define how we relate to one another in the U.S. Indie music scenes are one way to trace all of these relationships, from federal policy governing radio stations and what goes out over the airwaves to the contours of local music scenes, to the business of record labels, to ordinary DJs and music fans trying to access information and new sounds that they love.

Katherine's book list on the political side of music scenes

Katherine Rye Jewell Why did Katherine love this book?

Alice Echols is not only a renowned historian of the post–World War II era, exploring gender, politics, and pop culture, but she is also a former club DJ herself. She brings those experiences to her resurrection of the much-reviled disco scenes of the 1970s, which, before they became corporate big business, were the site of contests over the voices of American culture.

But more than that, Echols reveals how disco was an underground phenomenon, one whose origins are somehow more hidden than punk’s, and connects transnationally across oceans and across U.S. communities that reveal a complicated map of U.S. culture that defies common tropes.

More than a chronicle of disco’s rise and fall, Hot Stuff instead explores “shifts in identity and representation and the debates they triggered,” as well as reveals the dynamics between underground and commercial that would roil college radio. On top of it all, Echols’s engaging writing…

By Alice Echols,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hot Stuff as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the 1970s, as the disco tsunami engulfed America, the question, "Do you wanna dance?" became divisive, even explosive. What about this music made it such hot stuff? In her incisive history, Alice Echols reveals the ways in which disco transformed popular music, propelling it into new sonic territory and influencing rap, techno, and trance. This account probes the complex relationship between disco and the era's major movements: gay liberation, feminism, and the black freedom struggle. You won't say "disco sucks" again as disco pumps back to life in this pulsating look at the culture and politics that gave rise…


Book cover of Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes

Katherine Rye Jewell Author Of Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio

From my list on the political side of music scenes.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interests as a historian involve examining how Americans organize to change policy or politics through affiliations beyond political parties and, by extension, thinking about how culture is made and supported through institutions and businesses. These messy networks and relationships ultimately define how we relate to one another in the U.S. Indie music scenes are one way to trace all of these relationships, from federal policy governing radio stations and what goes out over the airwaves to the contours of local music scenes, to the business of record labels, to ordinary DJs and music fans trying to access information and new sounds that they love.

Katherine's book list on the political side of music scenes

Katherine Rye Jewell Why did Katherine love this book?

No one combines the business of indie scenes – from production to labels to distribution – better than Holly Kruse. In this accessible yet rich book, she details the complicated structure of the alternative system that Azerrad nods to in his history of the bands that occupied the airwaves and whose products circulated through these systems.

To say that these independent music labels and distributors operated completely absent of the corporate music industry from the beginning is a canard, as Kruse demonstrates, but she also reveals the personal and particular practices that shaped these emerging commercial relationships and consumption patterns that undergirded music fans’ ability to participate in music scenes locally, as well as to access sounds from across the nation, and indeed the world. 

By Holly Kruse,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Site and Sound as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes examines how independent pop and rock music scenes of the 1980s and 1990s were constituted within social and geographical spaces. Those active in the production and consumption of «indie» pop and rock music thought of their practices as largely independent of the music mainstream – even though some acts recorded for major labels. This book explores the web of personal, social, historical, geographical, cultural, and economic practices and relationships involved in the production and consumption of «indie» music.


Book cover of Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us

Howard Yaruss Author Of Understandable Economics: Because Understanding Our Economy Is Easier Than You Think and More Important Than You Know

From my list on inspiring people to improve the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in Brooklyn in a family that often faced financial difficulties and started working in my early teens in my father’s grocery store. These experiences made me painfully aware of the great disparities in education, security, material well-being, and opportunity in our society.  I saw how these inequalities caused some people to become cynical, resigned, or indifferent—while others became determined to overcome them. I became fascinated by them.  I felt that if I wanted to live in a more just and productive society, I first had to understand how it worked. My recommended books inspired me further and helped me to gain that understanding.

Howard's book list on inspiring people to improve the world

Howard Yaruss Why did Howard love this book?

I believe education (what economists call “human capital”) is the key to a more productive, equitable, and happier society. After all, many rich nations, like Switzerland, Japan, and Israel, have almost no natural resources but do have well-educated populations, and many poor nations, like the Congo, Venezuela, and Nigeria, have extremely valuable natural resources but do not have well-educated populations. Therefore, I am concerned about the state of education in America and am particularly troubled that our best universities may not be achieving as much for our society as they could. This book is a searing critique of their role and makes the case that we should expect so much more from them, given their huge resources.

By Evan Mandery,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Poison Ivy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An eye-opening look at how America's elite colleges and suburbs help keep the rich rich-making it harder than ever to fight the inequality dividing us today

The front-page news and the trials that followed Operation Varsity Blues were just the tip of the iceberg. Poison Ivy tells the bigger, seedier story of how elite colleges create paths to admission available only to the wealthy, despite rhetoric to the contrary. Evan Mandery reveals how tacit agreements between exclusive "Ivy-plus" schools and white affluent suburbs create widespread de facto segregation. And as a college degree continues to be the surest route to…


Book cover of Presidential Leadership: Making a Difference

Mark William Roche Author Of Realizing the Distinctive University: Vision and Values, Strategy and Culture

From my list on faculty who find themselves in administration.

Why am I passionate about this?

The year after I got tenure, I became a chairperson, overseeing more than twenty faculty members in my department at Ohio State University. I continued in administration for the next seventeen years, serving as a dean at Notre Dame for more then a decade. I am convinced that the best books on higher education interweave ideas, anecdotes, and data. I pursued that genre here, engaging the questions, what makes a university distinctive and how can one best flourish as an administrator.

Mark's book list on faculty who find themselves in administration

Mark William Roche Why did Mark love this book?

When I became a dean in 1997, much of my serious reading moved from my discipline to higher education.

It made sense to me that the differences between chairperson, dean, provost, and president had more to do with demands on one’s time than the kind of work one needs to do, and indeed, I learned much from this book, which makes the case for strong and charismatic leadership.

While it is among the most compelling books on presidential leadership and its possible impact on a campus, much of the advice is transferable to persons in less senior positions.

By James L. Fisher, James V. Koch,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Presidential Leadership as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Koch and Fisher have updated and expanded the latter's highly respected 1984 book, Power of the Presidency. In Presidential Leadership, the authors explore the transformational style of leadership in greater depth. This theory is based on a strong, charismatic university president who leads and transforms the university through the power of his or her own vision for the future. The provocative arguments offered throughout the book are based both on empirical studies and on the authors' personal experiences as university presidents. Chapters on total quality management, presidential spouses, and fund raising are new to this edition, as are 11 appendixes…


Book cover of The Adjunct Professor's Complete Guide to Teaching College: How to Be an Effective and Successful Instructor

Susannah C. Richards Author Of A Work of Heart: Connecting with Kids in a Chaotic World

From my list on that are not required in college - but should be.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a young student, my goal was to be invisible. I was the child who hid between the time-honored cracks in the floorboards of the antiquated school where – decades earlier – my mother also attended. I resided between the cracks (BTC); the not-so-fancy term for those students who faintly prick the adult senses that something is amiss. How ironic as I fast-forward to my initial career decision, I actually chose to become a teacher, a daily life path in the very environment I once despised. Yet, former BTC membership caused me to seek out those silent, self-marginalized students to bring them out of the floorboards and into the daylight.

Susannah's book list on that are not required in college - but should be

Susannah C. Richards Why did Susannah love this book?

After more than thirty years of teaching college students, Dr. “Tony” Fredericks put pen to paper to create a practical and solution-based guide for adjunct professors.

First, the reader is guided to establish best teaching practices for this specialized group of students. The author also provides countless tools as he details how to select a textbook and design a syllabus, define first-day teaching expectations, pose effective questions to propel stimulating discussions, and teach diverse populations of students.

Meticulously constructed, the author composes the text in a well-organized and easy-to-read format. As an aside, Dr. Tony Fredericks currently is the author of over one-hundred-seventy books, comprised as adult non-fiction books, children’s books, pre-service teacher books, and teacher resource books. Not too shabby. 

By Anthony Fredericks,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Adjunct Professor's Complete Guide to Teaching College as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Ancillary Army.  Freeway Flyers.  Roads Scholars.  Turnpike Teachers.  These are some of the nicknames given to part-time college teachers.  They may teach one or two courses at a single institution, or, in some cases, they may teach multiple courses at multiple institutions.  Often their office consists of the front seat of their car, and their desk is a cardboard box.  Their lunch is whatever they can grab at McDonalds while zipping through traffic to their next scheduled class.

For many, the thought of teaching one or two courses in their area of specialty is most appealing.  Not only does…


Book cover of Catholic Higher Education: A Culture in Crisis

Mark William Roche Author Of The Intellectual Appeal of Catholicism and the Idea of a Catholic University

From my list on Catholic higher education.

Why am I passionate about this?

I moved to the University of Notre Dame in 1997 because I fell in love with its distinctive vision, including its core mission as a Catholic university. A year later I became dean. When during interviews I asked prospective faculty members how they might contribute to the distinctive mission of Notre Dame, broadly understood, I realized that they did not really understand what a Catholic university was, so I gave them my own understanding of Notre Dame and of the idea of a Catholic university. Eventually, I turned my oral answer into a short book, which articulates that vision in ways that should inspire anyone, whether they are Catholic or not. 

Mark's book list on Catholic higher education

Mark William Roche Why did Mark love this book?

This book is the one furthest from my own interests. Instead of articulating a vision, it includes the results of interviews with senior administrators across more than 30 campuses. But it is important to know not only what should be, but also what is. 

The authors’ conclusions about the current landscape of Catholic higher education are sobering. The most prominent finding, is that many lay leaders have insufficient vision and knowledge of the Catholic intellectual tradition.

By Melanie M. Morey, John J. Piderit,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Catholic Higher Education as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Catholic higher education in the United States is undergoing dramatic changes, driven largely by the virtual disappearance of nuns, brothers, and priests from Catholic university campuses. Today Catholic colleges and universities are dealing with critical questions about what constitutes Catholic collegiate identity, what are appropriate ways to engage the Catholic tradition across all sectors of university life, what constitutes a critical mass of committed and knowledgeable Catholics necessary to maintain religious identity, what is an appropriate level of knowledge and religious commitment for those who lead, govern, and teach at Catholic institutions and how do they acquire it. Many people…


Book cover of Higher Education Accessibility Behind and Beyond Prison Walls

Mneesha Gellman Author Of Education Behind the Wall: Why and How We Teach College in Prison

From my list on college in US prisons.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been involved with teaching in prison for the last 22 years, and have taught everything from creative writing to meditation to college classes across carceral facilities in New York, California, and Massachusetts. As the founder and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative at Emerson College’s campus at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, I constantly work with faculty and students who are navigating the teaching and learning environment under some of the most adverse circumstances. These books have helped me feel less alone in this work.

Mneesha's book list on college in US prisons

Mneesha Gellman Why did Mneesha love this book?

McMay and Kimble’s edited volume brings together a wide range of case studies looking at some form of higher education behind bars. Meant to showcase many different forms of higher education in prison, this book underscores the diversity of what higher education in prison can look like. In each case study, strengths and challenges of a given approach are visible and provide an honest look at how to support learners in a range of circumstances.

*Disclaimer—I have a chapter in this volume.

By Dani V. McMay (editor), Rebekah D. Kimble (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Higher Education Accessibility Behind and Beyond Prison Walls as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Numerous studies indicate that completing a college degree reduces an individual's likelihood of recidivating. However, there is little research available to inform best practices for running college programs inside jails or prisons or supporting returning citizens who want to complete a college degree. Higher Education Accessibility Behind and Beyond Prison Walls examines program development and pedagogical techniques in the area of higher education for students who are currently incarcerated or completing a degree post-incarceration. Drawing on the experiences of program administrators and professors from across the country, it offers best practices for (1) developing, running, and teaching in college programs…


Book cover of The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry, and Accomplishment

Sanjay Sarma Author Of Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn

From my list on helping us reimagine what education could be.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm passionate about understanding and fixing how we teach and learn for a simple reason: My own journey as a learner was very nearly cut short. While attending one of the most competitive universities in India, I witnessed firsthand what can happen when a once-promising student runs into learning roadblocks. I nearly gave up on my academic career, only to be saved by—of all things—a hands-on, corporate training program. As I moved back into academia, it became my goal, first as an educator and later as MIT’s Vice President for Open Learning, to empower how we teach and learn with findings from cutting-edge research. And to avail these possibilities to as many learners as possible. 

Sanjay's book list on helping us reimagine what education could be

Sanjay Sarma Why did Sanjay love this book?

There has lately been an unfortunate tendency among educational observers and policymakers to reduce the value proposition of higher ed to purely measurable metrics: money spent; time spent; money earned. In this sort of analysis, the hard-nosed science and technology subjects tend to come out on top. Those who would speak for the humanities and arts, meanwhile, make the valid but sometimes unsatisfying point that there are benefits—perhaps less readily measurable but still very real and of significant personal and social value—to softer-edged subjects. The goal of The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs is simple: to correct this asymmetry by measuring what was previously obscure. By the end of this book, readers will be convinced of the true and lasting value of the liberal arts tradition in higher education.

By Richard A. Detweiler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts education: how and why it has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment.

In ongoing debates over the value of a college education, the role of the liberal arts in higher education has been blamed by some for making college expensive, impractical, and even worthless. Defenders argue that liberal arts education makes society innovative, creative, and civic-minded. But these qualities are hard to quantify, and many critics of higher education call for courses of study to be strictly job-specific. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Detweiler, drawing on interviews…


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