| Abstract: | Contemporary public discussion of and policy formation with respect to higher education pay scant attention to the history and structure of the modern university. In part this is forgivable, since educational historians deal almost exclusively with schooling to the neglect of any wider assessment of formal education within the public sphere. Nonetheless, personal ‘experience’, much less sheer prejudice, is no substitute for an understanding of ‘higher learning’. This review essay considers the outline history provided by Robert Stevens’ From University to Uni and suggests that we are now entering an era of a ‘postmodern’ university whose purposes are both incoherent and implausible. |
