Forces beyond nations
In February, Jason Beckfield was named a full professor of sociology at Harvard, where he had labored in the junior faculty trenches for five years. “It was a relief you cannot imagine,” said Beckfield, a modest, rangy 35-year-old and the father of two, “an instantaneous lowering of blood pressure.” Beckfield got his introduction to sociology at Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman State University), where his favorite professor barked out brilliant lectures and often showed up in class still dressed for duck hunting. Said Beckfield of Harvard, “This is not the place I expected to land.” Yet his academic path was remarkable and lucky, said Beckfield, beginning with the public schools in his native Joplin, Mo. “At every grade,” he remembered, “I was fortunate to have very good teachers.” Most of all, there was the steadying influence of his parents — the late Albert Beckfield, an accountant, and his wife Cathy, a bank...