Cuvier’s History of the Natural Sciences: Nineteen Lessons from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Edited and annotated by Theodore W. Pietsch; translated by Beatrice D. Marx. Paris (France): Publications Scientifiques du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle; distributed by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago (Illinois). $65.50 (paper). 859 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978-2-85653-766-4. [The book is printed in French and English.] 2015.

2016 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-352
Author(s):  
Michael Ruse
Author(s):  
Roger L. Geiger

This chapter reviews the book The University of Chicago: A History (2015), by John W. Boyer. Founded in 1892, the University of Chicago is one of the world’s great institutions of higher learning. However, its past is also littered with myths, especially locally. Furthermore, the university has in significant ways been out of sync with the trends that have shaped other American universities. These issues and much else are examined by Boyer in the first modern history of the University of Chicago. Aside from rectifying myth, Boyer places the university in the broader history of American universities. He suggests that the early University of Chicago, in its combination of openness and quality, may have been the most democratic institution in American higher education. He also examines the reforms that overcame the chronic weaknesses that had plagued the university.


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