Mr Menand offers this story as one approach to the past, not as documented or demonstrable fact.

ECONOMIST: How the pragmatists changed the way Americans thought

You can, Mr Menand points out, become a lawyer in three years and a medical doctor in four.

ECONOMIST: The difficulties of an American doctoral student

How much real intellectual commerce was there between Mr Menand's chosen four or is the Cambridge club a handy narrative device?

ECONOMIST: How the pragmatists changed the way Americans thought

Mr Menand tells a plausible story about the growth and importance of pragmatism in American thought and he does so without knockdown arguments.

ECONOMIST: How the pragmatists changed the way Americans thought

Personal rows, the ups and downs of careers, the snakes and ladders of the academy (Mr Menand is especially good on these) are scrupulously noted.

ECONOMIST: How the pragmatists changed the way Americans thought

Mr Menand, a frequent magazine writer as well as a professor of English, zestfully adopts the contemporary biographical practice of not treating thinkers as disembodied intelligences.

ECONOMIST: How the pragmatists changed the way Americans thought

There are many ways to practise the history of ideas, and true to the pluralist tenor of his subject, Mr Menand seems happy to employ almost all of them.

ECONOMIST: How the pragmatists changed the way Americans thought

His jibe, though not without logical bite, neglects the democratic thrust of pragmatism, as Mr Menand reminds us: not only codes and categories, but hierarchies and establishments were anathema to it.

ECONOMIST: How the pragmatists changed the way Americans thought

These are large characters, whom Mr Menand catches well.

ECONOMIST: How the pragmatists changed the way Americans thought