A History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 4, 1870-1990

Book excerpt: This is the fourth volume of A History of the University of Cambridge and explores the extraordinary growth in size and academic stature of the University between 1870 and 1990. Though the University has made great advances since the 1870s, when it was viewed as a provincial seminary, it is also the home of tradition: a federation of colleges, one over 700 years old, one of the 1970s. This book seeks to penetrate the nature of the colleges and of the federation; and to show the way in which university faculties and departments have come to vie with the colleges for this predominant role. It attempts to unravel a fascinating institutional story of the society of the University and its place in the world. It explores in depth the themes of religion and learning, and of the entry of women into a once male environment. There are portraits of seminal and characteristic figures of the Cambridge scene, and there is a sketch - inevitably selective but wide-ranging - of many disciplines, an extensive study in intellectual and academic history.