Robert A. McCaughey

In Robert A. McCaughey, Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York, 1754–2004 (New York, Columbia UP, 2004), Jacques Barzun is described as:

another instance [like Mark Van Doren] of a much-published Hamilton Hall habitué, but one whose interest in music and science fiction and predilection for academic polemics set him apart from most of his colleagues.

The inclusion of “science fiction” rather than detective stories among Barzun’s interests suggests that Professor McCaughey does not know Barzun well. Yet I was glad to have “Jacques Barzun’s recollection of the silent reproof from senior colleagues upon their discovery of his regular attendance at the Friday matinee of the New York Philharmonic” and other items about Barzun and about his and my alma mater.