Volume IV – Universities Since 1945
General Editor: Walter Ruegg
Editors and Contributors: Andris Barblan, Asa Briggs, Alison Browning, Gordon Craig, Hilde De Ridder-Symoens, John Ellist, Thomas Finkenstaedt, A.K. Harsey, Notker Hammerstein, Dirk Heirbraut, Geoff Lockwood, Herbert C. MacGregor, Stuart Monro, Guy Neave, Sheldon Rothblatt, Walter Ruegg, Jan Sadlak, Ulrich Teicher, Jacques Verger, Louis Vos, Christopher Watson, and John Ziman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press – 635 pages
Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram

This is the last of four volumes of a History of the University in Europe that covers the period from 1945 to the present (actually until 2011 when this volume was published)

Other volumes covered these periods of time:

  • Volume I – Universities in the Middle Ages
  • Volume II – Universities in Early Modern Europe (1500 – 1800)
  • Volume III – Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1800-1945)

This volume IV focuses on these themes of the university in western and eastern Europe:

  • The collaborative, comparative, interdisciplinary and transnational nature of universities in Europe
  • Content of what was taught t the universities
  • An appreciation of the role and structures as seen against a backdrop of changing conditions, ideas and values
  • Reconstruction and epoch-making expansion of higher education since 1945, leading to the triumph of modern science
  • Development of the relationship between universities and nation states, teachers and students, their ambitions and political activities
  • Fundamental changes in the content of teaching at the universities

To give you a better idea of what you’ll find covered, let us give you the titles of its 15 chapters

  1. Part I. Themes and Patterns
  2. Themes
  3. Patterns
  4. Part II. Structures
  5. Relations with Authority
  6. Management and Resources
  7. Teachers
  8. Part III. Students
  9. Students
  10. Curriculum, Students, Education
  11. Student Movements and Political Activism
  12. Graduation and Careers
  13. Part IV. Learning
  14. Social Sciences, History, and Law
  15. The Mathematical, Exact Sciences
  16. The Biological Sciences
  17. The Earth Sciences
  18. Medicine
  19. Technology
  20. Epilogue: From the University in Europe to the Universities in Europe

There is no information provided in this book (Volume IV) as to how many universities there were in Europe in the Middle Ages. Maybe that is because there was not much record-keeping done during that period of history.

Not readily available also is a single number in this book on how many universities were in existence during the period between 1801 and 1945, although there are numerous lists of names of universities by country and other sets of categories in the appendices that would involve adding and subtracting and re-adding some numbers, etc. So we turned to our frequently-referred source Wikipedia and found that there were about 220 universities in existence during 1801-1945.

Europe has grown a lot since 1945, including the establishment of the European Union. So we turned for information to the official website of the European Union which states the following: “There are some 3.300 higher education establishments in the European Union and approximately 4,000 in Europe as a whole, including the other countries of western Europe and the candidate countries.”

We found other interesting points of information on the number of universities in different countries. India has the largest number with 8,407 universities, followed by the United States, with 5,758, then Argentina with 1,705, and Spain with 1,425.

Among the best 103 universities in the world, according to TopUniversities.com, the top 12 ranked in order were: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Caltech, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich or Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Imperial College London, University College London or UCL, the National University of Singapore or NUS, and Nanyang Technical University or NTU in Singapore

Among the top 103, the United States had the most number of universities with 33, followed by the United Kingdom with 18. Those that had more than one university in this list were Australia with 7, China with 6, Japan and South Korea with 5 each, Hong Kong with 4, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland with 3 each, and Singapore with 2. Eight other countries had one university each in the top 103 list, namely: Argentina, Belgium, Denmark, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, and Taiwan. Note that 30 percent are in the Asia-Pacific region.

This book is an important one on higher education as one of the most important factors in economic and social growth. Europe is where Western civilization began which gave impetus to economic development, and the university was essentially the initial spark for that development.

 

General Editor:

Walter Ruegg was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1918. He was professor of sociology at the University of Berne (1973-86) and Johann Wolfgang Goethe University am Main (1961-73) and served as rector of the latter (1965-70), as president of the Westdeutschen Rektorenkonferenz (1967-8) and founding president of the International Association of Social Science Associations (1976-8). His numerous publications focus on humanism, historical sociology and the history of higher education.

 

Editors and Contributors:

Andris Barblan (Switzerland), Asa Briggs (UK), Alison Browning (UK/USA), Gordon Craig (UK), Hilde De Ridder-Symoens (Belgium), John Ellist (UK), Thomas Finkenstaedt (Germany), A.K. Harsey (UK), Notker Hammerstein (Germany), Dirk Heirbraut (Belgium), Geoff Lockwood (UK), Herbert C. MacGregor (UK), Stuart Monro (UK), Guy Neave (UK), Sheldon Rothblatt (USA), Walter Ruegg (Switzerland), Jan Sadlak (Poland/Canada), Ulrich Teicher (Germany), Jacques Verger (France), Louis Vos (Belgium), Christopher Watson (UK), and John Ziman (UK).