As a series of engaging essays, this book is laced with personal anecdotes about what it means to be a professor, a science professor in particular, and how the American university has changed now that the era of exponential growth in federal funding is over. Written in an informal, conversational style, its central purpose is to try to stimulate discussion and challenge the status quo. "Universities are at significant crosroads," the author writes, "they can keep trying to grow and push the post-World War II model of a university despite the absence of growing federal funds. Or they can try to redefine themselves in a way that takes into account the changes in the national economic and intellectual landscape over the last decade or two."