The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation [Hardcover]

Richard Norton Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1986

This text tells the story of how Harvard, America's oldest and foremost institution of higher learning has become synonomous with the nation, their goals and standards reflecting each other, each setting the other's agenda. It is a narrative of the individual achievements of its leaders and of the intense power struggles that have shaped Harvard as it pioneered in setting the priorities that have served as exemplars for the nation's educational establishment.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Mr. Smith fulfills his intentions with as readable an account of Harvard as we are likely to need for a while.
--Robert A. McCaughey (New York Times Book Review )

We appear to be at a turning point in the evolution of colleges and universities in America. As in earlier periods of our history, the institutions of higher education are changing in response to the knowledge needs of society...In reading Richard Norton Smith's The Harvard Century one revisits those forces and personalities shaping our major universities during the decisive decades of their development as the centers for scientific research.
--Christopher N. Breiseth (Change ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Richard Norton Smith is Director of the Gerald R. Ford Museum. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 397 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1ST edition (August 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671460358
• ISBN-13: 978-0671460358
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,078,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Mostly Boring Trip Down Memory Lane, August 20, 2002

By 

Peter Kenney (Birmingham, Alabama, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation (Paperback)

It is hard to imagine that this book will be of much interest to anyone who is unfamiliar with Harvard. For former students the pertinent parts may serve as a mostly boring trip down memory lane. For the real insiders such as professors or administrators or influential alumni it may prove to be more exciting.

After finally finishing the book I can only conclude that a story about Harvard or maybe any academic institution is apt to be uninteresting. I feel the same way about the prospect of reading a history of IBM or Xerox - but someone else may find it thrilling.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Self-important school pride garbage, March 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation (Paperback)

I had the misfortune of slogging through the first forty pages of this trite and immature piece of writing, before throwing it out. It does a great institution like Harvard a disservice and I can't believe that Harvard would allow its name to be attached to this.

5 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A well done statement to justify Discrimination, July 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation (Paperback)

I had the pleasure to read through this book under such a sick title. In short, the book is nothing but a joke made by a self-important person who needs very serious help in his spiritual world. Most of his words echoed how leading firms in Corporate America recruit staff. As a former Harvard Business School graduate, I would say, I am really ashamed of what I have seen daily. And the author clearly wants to make discrimination a religion. If people are no longer legally encouraged to judge by the color of skin, they are now awarded to judge simply by which school they are from. In the eye of some of my colleagues, or maybe the author, a corrupt foreign official who managed to send his son with stolen money to Harvard is clearly a much greater contributor to our society, if compared to a lowly waitor, whose son can only choose to go to a state school because of financial reasons.

Undoubtedly, Harvard is the most successful school in the United States. Yet, how successful? You can list a 1000 examples how Harvard changed this nation. However, those are out of 1,000,000 examples in most of which Harvard failed to do so. Harvard is lucky enough to attract the nation's most brilliant minds into its campus. Quite a few of them become incredibly successful. A lot more get quickly forgotten in this society.

I would like to draw an analogy here. When you are at the foot of a mountain, you feel even the sun was overshadowed by the mountain's great peak. If you stand right on the top of that peak, you might feel frustrated that the mountain does not bring you close enough to the sun while making you feel really cold.