The War for Harvard and the Future of Higher Education

Ivory Tower

Sex, lies and mortarboards: the gripping inside story of the culture war within Harvard University.In 2024, Claudine Gay – the President of Harvard – resigned after a disastrous Congressional questioning over antisemitism on campus. Donald Trump was gleeful, lambasting the university as a hotbed of ‘woke’ politics. Gay’s defenders were appalled, casting her as the victim of a reactionary witch-hunt. What neither side acknowledged was that Gay’s ousting was only the most recent moment in a decades long turf war on Harvard Quad: one that pitted Marxist sociologists against libertarian economists, Democratic activists against Republican presidents, and Wall Street philanthropists against student activists.Here, James Stewart – New York Times reporter and Pulitzer-winning author of Den of Thieves – offers the definitive inside story of the academic battles raging at America’s most famous college. The story of Harvard’s culture war, he shows, is also the story of America’s.

James B. Stewart is a columnist for the New York Times and a professor at Columbia Journalism School. He is the author of books including Deep State, Tangled Webs, Heart of a Soldier, Blind Eye, Blood Sport and Den of Thieves. In 1988, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the stock market crash and insider trading.

In 2024, Claudine Gay – the President of Harvard – resigned after a disastrous Congressional questioning over antisemitism on campus. Donald Trump was gleeful, lambasting the university as a hotbed of ‘woke’ politics. Gay’s defenders were appalled, casting her as the victim of a reactionary witch-hunt. 
 
What neither side acknowledged was that Gay’s ousting was only the most recent moment in a decades long turf war on Harvard Quad: one that pitted Marxist sociologists against libertarian economists, Democratic activists against Republican presidents, and Wall Street philanthropists against student activists.Here, James Stewart – New York Times reporter and Pulitzer-winning author of Den of Thieves – offers the definitive inside story of the academic battles raging at America’s most famous college. The story of Harvard’s culture war, he shows, is also the story of America’s.

James B. Stewart

Rachel Abrams

A racy tale of big money, bigger egos and #MeToo disgrace . . . Like a real-life blueprint for the TV show Succession

Jaw-dropping . . . an epic tale of toxic wealth and greed populated by connivers and manipulators.

Sex and power were the abiding obsessions of the colourful media mogul Sumner Redstone, whose life and career only became more bizarre as he aged and family and friends sought to get their hands on his empire. The saga helped inspire the HBO series Succession; this deeply reported account shows the truth was, if anything, stranger.

A real-life Succession . . . A deeply reported account of one of the trashiest episodes in recent business history . . . Masterful.

Has a business book ever made you blush? . . . With soap-operatic twists and turns, Unscripted makes the amped-up historical fiction of Babylon feel downright chaste by comparison

The sordid family saga that makes Succession look tame

Addicted to Succession? Well, here's the real thing.

The riveting, Succession-esque tale of the fight for control of Paramount Global

Imagine a mash-up of King Lear and Weekend at Bernie's the 1989 movie comedy about two scamps who prop up a cadaver so they can enjoy a weekend at his beach house, with Redstone starring in both title roles.

An explosive new page-turner . . . The sordid family saga that makes Succession look tame.

A succession battle more lurid than the one on HBO's fictional Succession.

A delicious treat . . . So weird and compelling - I lost some sleep unable to put this book down - that the reader may be the only witness to this spectacle who never feels manipulated.

A page-turner - an over-the-top tale of money, power, sex, and relentless scheming to wrest billions away from an old man who in his final years seems to have lost the capacity for just about anything except sex.

A must-read . . . A bombshell new book from two Pulitzer winners reveals some truly shocking storylines within the real-life Succession drama that is the Paramount media empire . . . A jaw-dropping yarn.

Ranks with Den of Thieves and Disney War as one of Stewart's finest books . . . To say that this story is rife with feuding, outrageous behavior, and litigation would be a gross understatement.

While we're waiting for Succession to come back to the small screen, this new biography of the Redstone family should scratch any lingering itch to learn more about the inner workings of a rich, powerful, and very complicated family.

Lays bare just how knotty and Succession-y the Redstone tale became towards the bitter end . . . the parallels are everywhere

A guilty-pleasure exposé on boardroom and bedroom maneuvering . . . A gripping and illuminating account of C-suite shenanigans and intrafamily strife. Entertaining on a gut level, it is populated by those we love to hate - horrible rich people, sleazy, greedy and driven by lust.

A tale of sex, lies, family drama and boardroom backstabbing . . . Part salacious soap opera, part business book/legal chronicle, it charts the downward spiral of Sumner as well as the downfall of Les Moonves, the media titan whose allies and enablers propped him up until the last minute..

'The media mogul Sumner Redstone was a womaniser, a bully, a terrible father - and exceptionally good copy. Unscripted, written by two New York Times journalists, is a pacy account of his final years . . . This is Succession, but with a much trashier cast.'

A deeply reported account of Redstone's final years, delving in sometimes excruciating detail into his extraordinary antics in both the boardroom and the bedroom . . . Like a lot of reality TV, Unscripted is riveting because its cast is so awful.

Sex and power were the abiding obsessions of the colourful media mogul Sumner Redstone, whose life and career only became more bizarre as he aged . . . The saga helped inspire the HBO series Succession; this deeply reported account shows the truth was, if anything, stranger.

Deeply reported and unsparing . . . A  juicy read that delves into (sometimes excruciating) detail about Redstone’s flawed character and extraordinary antics.

Sex and Lies in a Hollywood Media Empire

'Explosive' Esquire 
'Epic' Financial Times 
'Riveting' Vanity Fair 
 
Sumner Redstone was the CEO of Hollywood's most powerful company: in charge of Indiana Jones and Star Wars, film studios and TV production companies, a fleet of private jets and tailor-made jewellery lines. He was notorious for his fearsome temper, his all-consuming ambition and his pledge to live forever. Until, one day, he lost control. 
 
Unscripted is the story of an empire embroiled in scandal, a will in tatters, and a family on the edge of self-destruction. It sounds too outrageous to be true - except it is.

James B. Stewart

Books by James B. Stewart

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