Exchange of Ideas
The Economy of Higher Education in Early America
Format:Hardback
Publisher:The University of Chicago Press
Published:1st Mar '24
Should be back in stock very soon
The first volume of an ambitious new economic history of American higher education.
Exchange of Ideas launches a breathtakingly ambitious new economic history of American higher education. In this volume, Adam R. Nelson focuses on the early republic, explaining how knowledge itself became a commodity, as useful ideas became salable goods and American colleges were drawn into transatlantic commercial relations. American scholars might once have imagined that higher education could sit beyond the sphere of market activity—that intellectual exchange could transcend vulgar consumerism—but already by the end of the eighteenth century, they saw how ideas could be factored into the nation’s balance of trade. Moreover, they concluded that it was the function of colleges to oversee the complex process whereby knowledge could be priced and purchased. The history of capitalism and the history of higher education, Nelson reveals, are intimately intertwined—which raises a host of important and strikingly urgent questions. How do we understand knowledge and education as commercial goods? Who should pay for them? And, fundamentally, what is the optimal system of higher education in a capitalist democracy?
"A deeply researched study covering many aspects of an important issue." * Choice *
"Nelson’s marvelous book answers big questions. Why is higher education a private commodity? Why is it so often ensnared in political partisanship? Exchange of Ideas finds answers to these questions in the early republic, without reducing that era to a prequel of the later period, as histories of higher education often do. Instead, Nelson takes seriously the domestic and international economic and political forces that buffeted early American society. . . . [and] shows why the history of education matters to the histories of capitalism and early American politics." * William and Mary Quarterly *
"Should American colleges and universities serve the public good? It all depends on what we mean by 'the public,'of course, and what we imagine would be 'good' for it. Adam Nelson has produced the first full history of how Americans established and funded higher education, and--especially--of how they deliberated its fundamental purposes. From now on, anyone who wants understand that debate--or to enter into it themselves--will have to consult this groundbreaking book." -- Jonathan Zimmerman, University of Pennsylvania
"This book and its companion, Capital of Mind, represent a monumental achievement. They will fundamentally alter how we understand virtually every feature of US higher education during more than a century of its history. Nelson's work will cause a major splash and encourage readers to radically alter their views of the educational landscape before the Civil War. With these books, the history of American colleges and universities will never again look the same."
-- Andrew Jewett, Johns Hopkins University
“In this remarkable book, Adam Nelson offers a dazzling reinterpretation of the origins of American higher education through the lens of political economy. He carefully reconstructs how material constraints, political maneuvers, and social theory interacted to produce our decentralized, diverse, market-driven ‘system’ of higher education. In doing so, Nelson demonstrates that the tensions that seem to define contemporary higher education, such as the commodification of knowledge and globalization, in fact have long roots reaching back to the beginning of the nation.”
-- Julie A. Reuben, Harvard Graduate School of Education
ISBN: 9780226828497
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 36mm
Weight: 708g
448 pages