Criticisms of the book per se included Sandra Bowdler's argument that the book's scope was poorly represented by its title:Anybody acquiring a book entitled Academic Freedom and Apartheid would understandably look forward to a discussion of such topics as whether academic freedom were truly possible under the South African regime of apartheid, how the more liberal South African universities and other research and educational institutions were faring in the face of their repressive government, whether academics, by such actions as international boycotts of various sorts, had any effects on that regime, and if so, whether they were of the sort intended, and so on. Well, you can forget all that. To me, the major disappointment of this book is its complete failure to enter into any detailed discussion of these topics. This is not necessarily a criticism in that this is not the book's stated aim, but arises from its title. Were its title and subtitle to be interchanged, the prospective reader would have a much better idea of what she or he were in for.Sandra Bowdler, Australian Archaeology, 26.1 (1988), 114-17. DOI:10.1080/03122417.1988.12093153. Other criticisms included alleged misleadingly selective quotationJ. Desmond Clark, American Antiquity, 54.1 (January 1989), pp. 213-16. and omission of details that shed a less favourable light on Ucko's position (e.g. Polish archaeologists, refusing to attend in solidarity with South Africans, being forced to by their government, and sending a token representative in response);C. Garth Sampson, 'Practical Politics in the Wilderness of Mirrors: A Review Article', The South African Archaeological Bulletin, vol. 43, no. 147 (June 1988), 60-63. DOI: 10.2307/3887617. a lack of recognition of the experience of Nazi occupation in forming the views of Continental European actors on academic freedom;John Collis, Journal of Archaeological Science, 16.4 (July 1989), 449-50. and scepticism at Ucko's claims that he had not planned on using the WAC as a platform for anti-apartheid views all along.
