Jill Pellew (IHR, University of London) and Miles Taylor (University of York) have completed an edited book on the Utopian universities: a global history of the new campuses of the 1960s, which will be available from Bloomsbury by mid-November 2020.
The publication of the book Utopian universities is of greatest significance for launching a wider research agenda on university expansion in the 1960s that aims to understand the foundations and early development of ‘new’ universities in different political, cultural, social, and economic contexts.
The book’s global perspective helps to learn from a great variety of experiences and thus to shape public policies trying to leverage the positive impacts of universities on the economic prosperity, cultural diversity, and socio-environmental sustainability of local communities and broader societies, while at the same time countering challenges provided by austerity, Brexit, and global health crisis.
The book unites internationally diverse scholars who critically reflect upon university expansion in the 1960s from a transnational perspective, based on the analysis of contemporary sources and the archival record. This edited collection is therefore novel in its approach and will enrich the critical historiography of the university substantially.
Containing 22 chapters and 15 illustrations, the book Utopian universities promises to become an essential point of reference in the disciplines of history, education, geography, political science, and associated fields.