James Axtell is the Kenan Professor of Humanities Emeritus at the College of William and Mary. His many books include The Pleasures of Academe, The Educational Legacy of Woodrow Wilson, and The Making of Princeton University (Princeton). Axtell was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.
In this time of anti-intellectualism--whether technocratic or populist--we don't need more smug disruptors. We need more hopeful builders. They will remind us of the democratic aspirations of pragmatic liberal education while recalling that the ambitions of our finest universities help fulfill the dreams of our best selves as a people. --Michael Roth, Wall Street Journal Authoritative, panoramic... A thoroughly researched and vigorous history of an institution that has 'gained new vigor and proliferated progeny not only in the United States but around the globe.' --Kirkus At a time in which colleges and universities have come under sustained attack ... it may well be useful to explain to those outside the academy how American institutions became preeminent and why they continue to play an essential role at the center of modernity's infrastructure. In Wisdom's Workshop, Axtell does just that. Drawing on the vast literature on higher education, he provides an informative and engaging ... account of the evolution of the research university, from its origins in England, Italy, and France in the Middle Ages to the emergence of the 'multiversity' in the United States in the last half century. --Glenn Altschuler, Huffington Post