This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless. The reviews were generally quite positive. Although there were some criticisms that I will discuss later, the published reviews were all that I could have hoped for.
I also got a good deal of fan mail. Publishers in other countries chose to translate the book, eventually making it available in twelve languages. One of the first translations was to Swedish, which puzzled me, since potential readers in Sweden would very likely be able to read the original. Perhaps the most gratifying response was election by my fellow scientists to the National Academy of Sciences in I was the youngest political scientist to be so chosen. The next year came a MacArthur Fellowship.
What can one say about receiving that news? Well, there is someone who described the experience better than I can: Denise Shekerjian, who interviewed a number of winners for her study of creativity. She starts her book as follows. This project was born from a line in the newspaper. In recognition and encouragement of your creative capabilities, you have just been awarded a prize in the six-figure range to be paid out over the next five years with absolutely no strings attached.
I read on. The facts were staggering. Anywhere from thirty to seventy thousand dollars a year for five years. No applications allowed. No follow-up or accountability of any kind. Top-drawer prestige. A steady stream of checks in the mailbox.
Cash them, or bank them, or rip them up in a sorry moment of madnessβthe decision entirely yours, no explanations sought nor owed. In the beginning it was the fairy-tale freedom that attracted me to the MacArthur Award. Win a MacArthur and enjoy the ease of financial strain, the gift of time, and the star-making machinery that goes along with it all. As Shekerjian said, there is no accountability of any kind. In my case, I used the fellowship primarily to buy release time from teaching.
