Description
Book SynopsisThis work is the first major reexamination in English of the rise of the world's pioneer modern research university. It presents an authoritative history of science, scholarship, and education, offering readers a background platform from which to confront looming issues about the future of higher education systems everywhere, but especially in the United States. The innovations of the new-model University of Berlin reached their highest point of development and influence on foreign adopters of technology transfer under the new German Empire before World War I. These innovations were grafted onto and shaped American higher research, teaching, and professionalization like no other influence in the twentieth century. No previous book in English has described this impressive conscious creation of an institution promoting cutting-edge researchin fields from physics and medicine to law and theologycombined with the highest standards of active, self-involved student learning for the higher pr
Trade ReviewBerlin, the Mother of All Research Universities, 1860–1918, should be read or consulted by all historians of science and by historians of higher education, in Germany and beyond. * Isis *
Given the iconic significance of this university, referenced in the book’s title, the study recommends itself not only to the small community of university historians but also to scholars more broadly interested in the politics and social history of academic institutions and professions. . . . This book presents an informative. . . overview of the social and political history of Germany’s leading university at the height of its significance and fame. * Journal of Modern History *
These two recent university histories [Berlin and Nottingham: A History of Britain’s Global University by John Beckett] both offer a mine of useful information and key analyses of university development. . . . McClelland paints a detailed picture of the hierarchy of academic staff in the Berlin system. . . . These two books, both well written. . . merit deep attention by historians, especially those of higher education. * History of Education: Journal of the History of Education Society *
Charles E. McClelland has, for the first time, exhaustively analyzed the heyday of Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelm University (1860 to 1914) and made the causes of its rise to world leadership both comprehensible to an English-speaking audience and relevant to its emulators abroad, especially in America. This book not only sheds new light on the history of science and social history, but embeds both in the political context in which professors and students acted. -- Elmar Tenorth, Humboldt University of Berlin
This is a careful and significant history written by a mature scholar that shows how the world’s first research university took shape and evolved over time. It is also, deliberately and appropriately, an effort to use history to improve contemporary debate, where the achievements of higher education are too often belittled. The book deserves wide attention in both of its domains. -- Peter N. Stearns, George Mason University
Table of ContentsChapter 1: From the Ashes of Defeat to the Needs of a New Empire Chapter 2: “The Intellectual Bodyguard”: The Professors of Friedrich Wilhelm University Chapter 3: State and University: Finance, Control and Academic Freedom Chapter 4: The Structural Model “Modern Research University” in National and International Comparison Chapter 5: Students’ Relationships to Professors, Finances, and the Social Order Chapter 6: Minorities, Women, Privilege, and Subculture Chapter 7: The Public Sphere and Political Culture Chapter 8: The University in Public Opinion, Issues and Movements of the Day Chapter 9: The University and World War I: Preparing, Fighting, and Struggling to Recover Chapter 10: A Tarnished Model among World Adaptors
