The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars, and Neoliberal Ideology, by John Smyth

The central thesis of this well-constructed and well-referenced book is that in recent decades higher education policy – in common with much else that matters in human existence – has come to be shaped by neoliberalism’s blind and evidence-free prescriptions. As many commentators now assert, the real economy – which depends on cohesive social relations, humanism and respect for ecological integrity – has been usurped by a form of speculative, consumer-driven financial capitalism that may be divorced from reality but that nevertheless continues to dominate political discourse and, by extension, the governance of our institutions, including universities.