For the past decade I have worked at an American private liberal arts college whose small size obliges faculty to teach outside their specialties. Until recently, due partly to the press of administrative duties, I taught my specialty (ancient Greek history) only once every two years, yet as the resident economic historian I teach the “History of Capitalism” to M.B.A. candidates every semester, either in the evenings or on the weekends. Then in 1993, when no replacement could be found immediately for a departed social theory instructor, I volunteered to fill in and have been teaching it annually ever since.

One possible effect of teaching such different subjects outside one's own specialty is that in each one manages to learn just enough to be dangerous, yet in fact their effect on my view of the present subject has been chastening in two important respects.