Overview

The second volume of an ambitious new economic history of American higher education. Capital of Mind is the second volume in a breathtakingly ambitious new economic history of American higher education. Picking up his account where the first volume, Exchange of Ideas, ended, Adam R. Nelson looks at the early decades of the nineteenth century, explaining how the idea of the modern university arose from a set of institutional and ideological reforms designed to foster the mass production and mass consumption of knowledge, an “industrialization of ideas” that mirrored the industrialization of the American economy and catered to the demands of a new industrial middle class for practical and professional education. From Harvard in the north to the University of Virginia in the south, new experiments with the idea of a university elicited intense debate about the role of scholarship in national development and international competition, and whether higher education, in periods of fiscal austerity, should be supported by public funds. The history of capitalism and the history of the university, Nelson reveals, are intimately intertwined—which raises a host of important questions that remain salient today. How do we understand knowledge and education as commercial goods? Should they be public or private? Who should pay for them? And, fundamentally, what is the optimal system of higher education for a capitalist democracy?

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9780226829203

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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

"""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"

"""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, Exchange of Ideas, 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"

Author Information

Adam R. Nelson is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Educational Policy Studies and History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is author of The Elusive Ideal: Equal Educational Opportunity and the Federal Role in Boston’s Public Schools, 1950–1985 (also published by the University of Chicago Press), among other books.  

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