Description: Universities are spaces for contemplation but also sociability and simply living. The University places materiality at the center of the institution's 900-year history, tracing connections between the campus's shifting physical realities--straw and stone, flesh and blood, concrete and iron--and the evolving cultural meanings of higher learning.
Brief description: William Whyte, Professor of Social and Architectural History at the University of Oxford, is the author of Redbrick: A Social and Architectural History of Britain's Civic Universities. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he has written for The Guardian, History Today, and The Conversation.
Review Quotes: A delight to read. Whyte provides a fresh view of the world of knowledge, concentrating on its material components, from the carved stone of medieval Salamanca to the curved steel of Abu Dhabi's Zayed University. Masterfully weaving together the history of universities and the history of architecture, The University abounds in original insights.--Robert Darnton, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of The Writer's Lot