Reviews

"In his provocative new book, The Amateur Hour: A History of College Teaching in America, historian Jonathan Zimmerman chronicles more than 200 years of the quality of instruction in higher education. It's a history filled with noble but failed efforts to improve and reform college teaching, marked by student-led protests and solitary campaigns led by individual professors or administrators."

— The Association of College and University Educators

"This important contribution to scholarship will be welcomed by historians of education, scholars of higher education, as well as faculty and administrators more generally. It should also find an audience in the broader public because it explains why the college classroom functions the way it does."

— Julie A. Reuben, Harvard Graduate School of Education, author of The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality

"No one has ever collected these stories in one place nor written about them with such compelling style. Full of engaging vignettes, this refreshing book does a terrific job of distilling the themes of amateurism and personalization while chronicling the history of our failed attempts to improve, or at least systematize, college instruction."

— Scott Gelber, Wheaton College, author of Grading the College: A History of Evaluating Teaching and Learning

"An informative and engaging account of how teaching has been viewed—but not assessed—throughout the history of American higher education. Zimmerman tells a lively story of ongoing resistance to solving obvious problems while also offering suggestions for improvement, calling attention to the need for communities of teachers that can function as constructively as communities of scholars."

— Judith Shapiro, former President / Professor Emerita, Barnard College

"In finely-honed prose, The Amateur Hour limns twentieth-century reformers' earnest, and ultimately futile, efforts to persuade colleges to take teaching seriously. It belongs on the bookshelf of everyone—professors and administrators alike—with a stake in how we're educating our undergraduates."

— David Kirp, University of California at Berkeley, author of The College Dropout Scandal

"An entertaining and insightful account of efforts to improve college teaching. Zimmerman shows that today's issues—the promise (or menace) of technology, priority of research over teaching, grade inflation, course evaluations, political coercion, job insecurity—are not new but have a long history. A valuable book for anyone concerned with how professors can better serve students now as well as in the post-pandemic future."

— Andrew Delbanco, President, The Teagle Foundation, and author of College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be

"With a historian's eye and a teacher's love, Zimmerman makes visible the oft-hidden—and largely entrenched—world of postsecondary teaching. A must-read for all who wish to untangle the complexities and contradictory themes that remain at the heart of American higher education. We can't improve what we don't understand; The Amateur Hour helps us understand."

— Debra Mashek, Executive Director, Heterodox Academy

"His story is not for pollyannas, but rather for those who relish absurdity, black humor, irony, and, I fear, dashed dreams and heartbreak."

— Inside Higher Ed

"The Amateur Hour is the book to read now as we ponder our post-COVID higher education future."

— Joshua Kim