Every once in a while a scholar will write an absolutely pathbreaking article . . . then disappear. No books. No other articles. Sometimes they fail to get tenure, sometimes it's a health problem, sometimes they change research direction. One of the most fascinating people I have come across is a historian named Lynn Marshall, who in 1967 wrote what I thought was one of the most profound articles ever---in the prestigious American Historical Review. He briefly taught at my school, the U. of California, Santa Barbara and word was (unverified) that he failed to get tenure. Marshall produced no...