A Cultural History of Higher Learning

The definitive overview of the university in history, this 6-volume scholarly work presents 2,500 years of higher education in culture.

How has higher learning been shaped by people, ideas and knowledge? In a work that spans 2,500 years, 67 experts chart across the social and cultural dynamics of higher learning and education across the centuries.
Exploring higher learning rather than universities, the authors examine the full range of the effects of advanced education on their societies. Readers will discover ancient academies, monasteries, temples to professional and technical schools as well as universities. Together the volumes describe the remarkable drama of societies trying to organize knowledge for humanity, with many conflicts, reversals, and triumphs along the way.
Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six.
The six volumes cover: 1. Antiquity (500 BCE-500 CE); 2. Medieval Age (500-1400); 3. Renaissance (1400-1600); 4. Age of Enlightenment (1600-1760); 5. Age of Industry (1760-1900); 6. Modern Age (1900-present)
Themes (and chapter titles) are: cultures; geographies; authorities; teaching; disciplines; communities; materialities; contestations and epitome.
The total extent of the pack is approximately 1712 pages. Each volume opens with notes on contributors and an introduction and concludes with notes, bibliography, and an index.