First published 2014
William H. McNeill arrives at the University of Chicago in 1929 as Robert Maynard Hutchins begins his presidency. The young undergraduate witnesses firsthand as Hutchins launches sweeping educational reforms that divide the campus. McNeill watches fierce debates erupt over Hutchins' attacks on departmentalized learning and his push for general education. As both student and later instructor, McNeill participates in the struggle that reshapes American higher education. He encounters influential scholars like Richard McKeon, R. S. Crane, and David Daiches while navigating the charged atmosphere of reform and resistance. The Depression deepens, war arrives, and the nuclear age begins beneath Stagg Field, yet campus life revolves around Hutchins' magnetic presence. McNeill documents how students, faculty, and even the Hyde Park neighborhood respond to their charismatic leader. Through personal memories and archival research, he captures the institutional transformations, the Red scares, the popular Round Table radio shows, and the controversial end of big time football that define this turbulent era.
Genres: 20th-century, academia, academic, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, fish-out-of-water
Setting: University of Chicago, Hyde Park
Period: 1929, The Depression, World War II, The Nuclear Age
217 pages · Unknown Binding · Not Avail