New School [Hardcover]

Peter M. Rutkoff (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For almost 70 years the New School has been a vital alternative source of adult education for New Yorkers who have sought enlightenment in virtually every subject imaginable. Founded in 1918 by historians Charles Beard and James Harvey Robinson and influenced by the ideas of John Dewey and Thorstein Veblen, the school has advocated personal freedom, artistic and intellectual creativity, scientific rationalism and democratic politics. In this lively story, Rutkoff and Scott, historians at Kenyon College, Ohio, describe the controversies that have surrounded the New School, its administrative problems and the experiences of people who led and taught there during its first 50 yearsamong them many illustrious artists, composers, choreographers, philosophers, social scientists and writers, including Aaron Copland, Kenneth Koch, Robert Heilbroner, Hannah Arendt.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Established in Greenwich Village in 1918 as a center for the education of adults, the New School for Social Research was an informal, egalitarian institution whose faculty and students were to influ ence American social, political, and ar tistic life. A prominent center for social research by the 1930s, the school was transformed, partly through the influx of refugee European scholars, into a multi faceted university and a seedbed for di verse social and artistic movements. Covering the years 1917 to 1967, this institutional history is clearly written, well documented, and dotted with infor mative profiles of famous faculty such as Charles Beard and Aaron Copland. Al though a chronicle of a renegade univer sity, the book is so intent on chronology and events that it neglects to portray the verve and soul of the famous school. Its primary audience will be specialists in higher education or New York cultural history. Patricia Smith Butcher, Tren ton State Coll. Lib.,
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 314 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; First Edition edition (July 7, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029272009
• ISBN-13: 978-0029272008
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,619,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

We are Will Scott and Peter Rutkoff co-authors of Fly Away

WILL SCOTT: I teach in the department of History at Kenyon College. Not only are Peter and I colleagues, over the years we have collaborated on two other books and numerous papers and articles. As we read the last draft of Fly Away we found it impossible to determine who wrote what. Over the past thirty years we have taught a number of courses together, most importantly an NEH funded seminar entitled North By South, a research seminar on the Great Migration during which we took 75 students to conduct research on a southern black community and a northern community to which many members of the southern community migrated. We also co-directed three, three-year long Department of Education funded institutes on the Great Migration for Cleveland public school teachers.

I am not a "native New Yorker." I grew up in Christ Church Parish in Charleston, South Carolina. I am a self-taught furniture maker, the father of two grown daughters, and the husband of a woman who also grew up in Christ Church Parish. For both Peter and me, Fly Away is the culmination of a decade of unexpected discovery and affection.

PETER RUTKOFF: I teach American Studies at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.
My career spans more than 38 years, ones that I devote to creative, scholarly, pedagogic concerns--ideals that Will and I share along with our love for the subject of our book and our collaboration.

I'm very committed to social justice issues, to experimental teaching strategies, and to working with school teachers. All these areas feed into and benefit from my work as a scholar and writer.

As a New Yorker living in Ohio, traveling to fascinating places like Cyprus and Ghana, I continue to take in the world.

But, I like nothing better than sitting on the front deck of a summer rental on Lake Otsego, in Cooperstown. There the world slows down, the water restores, and I find the peace that I need to create.