Robert Maynard Hutchins: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Milton Mayer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 1993

At age 28, he was dean of Yale Law School; at 30, president of the University of Chicago. By his mid-thirties, Robert Maynard Hutchins was an eminent figure in the world of educational innovation and liberal politics. And when he was 75, he told a friend, "I should have died at 35."
Milton Mayer, Hutchins's colleague, and friend, gives an intimate picture of the remarkably outstanding, and fallible, man who participated in many of this century's most important social and political controversies. He captures the energy and intellectual fervor Hutchins could transmit to others, and which the man brought to the fields of law, politics, civil rights, and public affairs.
Rich in detail and anecdote, this memoir vividly brings to life both a man and an age.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An outspoken American educator whose innovative ideas were enacted during his 1929-1951 tenure at the University of Chicago as president and chancellor, Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977) lobbied increasingly for intellectual inquiry and the preservation of scholarly traditions. Mayer ( If Men Were Angels ), who died in 1986, was a friend and colleague of Hutchins. His well documented, affectionate and objective memoir (written mostly in the third person) outlines Hutchins's considerable achievements, including the introduction of the Great Books Program on campus and his fierce commitment to academic freedom. Mayer also details Hutchins's intemperate, seemingly pro-Hitler remarks before the outbreak of WW II, and the considerable neglect with which he treated his first wife and three children. Hicks is a retired English professor at the University of Massachusetts. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Those who know of Hutchins will delight in this sympathetic account of a friendship and association that lasted 40 years. Those who are not familiar with him will gain much insight into the true nature of one of the most controversial figures in American education. Dean of the Yale Law School at 29, chancellor of the University of Chicago, and Ford Foundation executive, Hutchins was, as Mayer calls him, "an unyielding absolutist." He championed the cultivation of the intellect through liberal arts education, campaigned for the establishment of a world organization, and abolished intercollegiate football--moves that earned him the condemnation of some and the adulation of others. Mayer is no hagiographer. He holds his scales fairly even. This exciting memoir deserves more attention than it is probably destined to receive. Highly recommended for most libraries.
- A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 546 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (April 2, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520070917
• ISBN-13: 978-0520070912
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #586,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect memoir, aware of its pretensions but honest always, October 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Robert Maynard Hutchins: A Memoir (Hardcover)

If you've never been exposed to the "Great Books" movement in higher education, you probably don't know who Robert Hutchins was. I only knew him as a dazzling champion of this almost-forgotten ideal of learning, as did his contemporaries. Milton Meyer showed me a man superhuman in his aims and yet tragically flawed. He espoused the Classics without being a true student of them, and yet was he not more Shakespearean than any of the professors he governed? Anyway, the book moved me. If you have any ability to be inspired by the story of an imperfect man, read this book.