Academic Gamesmanship

Academic Gamesmanship: How to Make a Ph.D. Pay - 2025 Edition

The owner of a newly earned Ph.D. accepts a university faculty position hoping to advance based on merit. Soon enough, however,the new Ph.D. learns that academic success depends more on strategic maneuvering than pure ability. Today, gamesmanship is the Ph.D.’s surest means of getting to the top. Academic Gamesmanship is to the Ph.D. what The Peter Principle is to the business executive: a brilliant—and often hilarious—guide to the strategies for success. Its exposé of academic pretentiousness and pomposity is unsurpassed. Yet behind the wit lies the insight of a noted sociologist. Dr. van den Berghe weighs the in-fighting, credit-stealing, and buck-passing used in jockeying for academic power. Most significantly, he unmasks the negligibility of so much scholarlystriving and aspiration.

Advanced Praise for Academic Gamesmanship

“Pierre van den Berghe has written a very wise and very witty book [that] should be of interest to everyone within academia… [Itprovides] advice on how and where to publish; how to be promoted; how (or better yet, how not) to teach; how to get grants forresearch, and how to make it through the lean years of graduate school. This book can be used in (at least) two ways: first, to change the present system, to make the book obsolete, as van den Berghe himself suggests, or second, to follow its advice and carve out a successful career... In any case, van den Berghe should be congratulated; he has diligently followed his own advice and written a controversial book which his colleagues will discuss into the night.”

—Jack Nusan Porter, American Journal of Sociology, Book Review (November 1971)

Pierre L. van den Berghe (1933–2019) was a Congolese-born American sociologist renown-ed for his pioneering work in ethnic and race relations.Earning a doctorate at Harvard under Talcott Parsons, he rejected structural function-alism in favor of sociobiological approaches. Van den Berghe taught at Harvard, Wesleyan, the Sorbonne, and the University of Washington, where he served from 1965 to his retirement. He conducted fieldworkacross five continents, publishing several influential books in sociology, including one about advancing in higher edu-cation, namely,AcademicGamesmanship.