Professor Brinkley has chronicaled the life of Hampden-Sydney, one of the last bastions of rational learning in a sea of trendy educational ideas. The book is not scintilating, but it explains how and why such a unique institution came to by in the rolling hills of Southside Virginia. His attention to detail is mind numbing, as should be expected, I suppose, of a work decades in the making. For Hampden-Sydney alumni, friends and family, it is surely a tome worth hefting