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Required reading for anyone who wants to offer any utterance, no matter how small, about where higher ed might be going.
I do believe that the book is worthy of being the major new overview of US higher education.
A readable and concise introduction to this subject, it propels audience members to develop an appreciation for the heterogeneous... academe story as a whole.
Apart from being first-rate historical interpretation, Thelin's book offers several advantages that should make it attractive to the general reader as well as the scholar... His writing is brisk, concise, and humorous... Part public policy analyst and part social historian, Mr. Thelin weaves a tight narrative that keeps moving. He gives you the view from the administrative building, and he also tells you, often with accompanying photos, what students were like.
Extremely well written and meticulously documented.
Well written and engaging... retains the reader's attention... Thelin has raised the bar for historians of higher education to clear.
Thelin offers an historical analysis of contemporary trends and issues in higher education today, e.g., access, affordability, accountability, and assessment. How colleges addressed those issues within different periods of time and societal contexts makes for a more enlightened image of higher education in the US as it exists today.
Fills a real need in the scholarship... Accessible and informative, providing a reasonable foundation on which to build a rich understanding of the development of American higher education.
Destined to be the standard work in this area for years to come.
Despite its age, Rudolph's single-volume history has endured... Now John Thelin's A History of American Higher Education provides a worthy replacement.
This is a splendid book, by far the best to appear on the subject since the 1962 publication of Frederick Rudolph's The American College and University: A History. John Thelin's work will supplant Rudolph's as the dominant overview of the history of American higher education. Comprehensive but not encyclopedic, Thelin's account is interspersed with lively anecdotes and a creative emphasis on cultural history that will keep the attention of readers. It is a tour de force.
The thing about any John Thelin book—including this timely revision of his masterwork—is that it will be deeply researched, thoughtfully organized, and beautifully written. His synthetic range of resources is astounding, and you can almost taste the popcorn at the football games and touch the ivy on the buildings.
John Thelin's new edition of his comprehensive and balanced history of American higher education makes an important contribution to students and to scholars. Culminating in his new chapter on the 2010s, this is the most up-to-date such history now available.
John Thelin's A History of American Higher Education sets the foundation for discussions of colleges and universities in the United States. Thelin has spent years delving into archives and engaging literature to tell a fascinating and lively story of higher education. His humor, engaging writing, and vast knowledge make history come alive for the readers and he pushes them to consider the historical foundations of the current issues, scandals, challenges, and successes within the higher education context.
In this new edition, Thelin masterfully examines continuities and challenges across centuries of American higher education, exploring purposes, access, funding, governance, equity, and student life. He concludes by probing how twenty-first-century economic, demographic, and legal developments are affecting—and sometimes unsettling—basic institutional principles and commitments.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
560
ISBN
9781421428833
Illustration Description
13 b&w photos
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Historians and Higher Education
1. Colleges in the Colonial Era
2. Creating the "American Way" in Higher Education: College-Building, 1785 to 1860
3. Diversity and
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Historians and Higher Education
1. Colleges in the Colonial Era
2. Creating the "American Way" in Higher Education: College-Building, 1785 to 1860
3. Diversity and Adversity: Resilience in American Higher Education, 1860 to 1890
4. Captains of Industry and Erudition: University-Builders, 1880 to 1910
5. Alma Mater: America Goes to College, 1890 to 1920
6. Success and Excess: Expansion and Reforms in Higher Education, 1920 to 1945
7. Gilt by Association: Higher Education's "Golden Age," 1945 to 1970
8. Coming of Age in America: Higher Education as a Troubled Giant, 1970 to 2000
9. A New Life Begins? Reconfiguring American Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century
10. Prominence and Problems: American Higher Education since 2010
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index
