Faustian Scholarship

"Nevertheless, Faust's distinguished career as a historian suggests a temperament quite different from that of her reputation as a consensus builder. Although as an administrator she has by all accounts been a smooth inside operator, as a thinker and writer Faust has displayed a taste for shaking things up.
"'Her historical work has certainly not been that of a "safe" thinker,' says James McPherson, an emeritus professor at Princeton and leading Civil War historian. On the contrary, he says, her reputation among historians is as a 'bold' scholar."

In The Boston Globe, Drake Bennett explores the work of historian and incoming Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust.