Wisdom's Workshop: The Rise of the Modern University Hardback - 2016

"In Wisdom's Workshop, James Axtell takes us on a fascinating journey from the Oxford and Cambridge colleges through the German universities to the early development of American colleges to the preeminent research universities of today. This is a wonderful history: beautifully written and compelling. If you think current colleges and universities face challenges, wait until Axtell tells you about their predecessors."--Jonathan R. Cole, author of The Great American University

"This major work examines the evolution of the American research university, judiciously placing it into an international perspective. Axtell's research is solid, comprehensive, felicitous, and inspired."--W. Bruce Leslie, State University of New York, Brockport

"With both a bird's-eye view and ground-level perspective, Wisdom's Workshop offers a broad look at the university. This book surveys eight hundred years of university evolution, from medieval Paris to elite American research universities, while also providing telling vignettes of life within these institutions. With masterful scholarship and delightful prose, James Axtell recounts a history, little known beyond specialists, of an establishment central to contemporary culture."--Roger L. Geiger, author of The History of American Higher Education

"James Axtell begins Wisdom's Workshop by noting that some books beg to be written. Yes, indeed, and we readers should be grateful that Axtell answered the call. We have needed an updated history of the American research university and this work fills the void superbly. Following the institution's development from the Middle Ages to the present, Axtell's narrative is lucid, insightful, concise, and comprehensive. This will be the go-to book for people seeking to understand elite universities."--Julie Reuben, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"Axtell's book stands alone as the only work that traces the historical genealogy of America's elite research universities. The scholarship is deep and solid, and Axtell's distinctive voice comes through. His important, learned, and entertaining book is not simply a clear and coherent history but also a love letter to universities and the life of the teacher-scholar."--James Turner, University of Notre Dame