Abstract:
Few institutions in modern society are as significant as universities, yet our
historical and sociological understanding of the role of higher education has
not been substantially updated for decades. By revisiting the emergence and
transformation of higher education since 1800 using a novel processual
approach, this book recognizes these developments as having been as central to
constituting the modern world as the industrial and democratic revolutions.
This new interpretation of the role of universities in contemporary society
promises to re-orient our understanding of the importance of higher education
in the past and future development of modern societies. It will therefore appeal
to scholars of social science and history with interests in social history and
social change, education, the professions and inequalities.
