LETTER:Charitable charade of academia
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Your support makes all the difference.From Mr Robert Allen
Sir: Germaine Greer's criticisms of the university presses make no sense. If she wants more people to read books, it cannot be right to tax them. Books are not ordinary commodities, any more than food or children's shoes are.
In the Eighties, Oxford University Press published a monograph of mine on the Hellenistic kingdom of Pergamum. No one else could have published it; nor could OUP if Germaine Greer had her way. Yet I am told there are people who find it useful. I am sure this is equally true of the many other books only the university presses are able to consider, and long may it continue.
Yours sincerely,
Robert Allen
Edinburgh
3 October
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