About 50 years ago, Time Magazine ran an article on somebody's list of the 100 leading intellectuals in America. I remember almost no names from the list, but d

About 50 years ago, Time Magazine ran an article on somebody's list of the 100 leading intellectuals in America. I remember almost no names from the list, but do remember a definition from an official at Harvard, a dean perhaps: An intellectual is a scholar who is living beyond his scholarly means. Honestly, public intellectual has always been an odd calling. Who would you define it? One who writes serious, scholarly books, yet also articles in the popular or semi-popular press? The difficulty might then be in judging whose serious books are serious.