The Harvard Century; The Making of a University to a Nation

New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1986. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. 397, [3] pages. Illustrations. Source Notes. Index. Richard Norton Smith (born 1953) is an American historian and author specializing in U.S. presidents and other political figures. In the past, he worked as a freelance writer for The Washington Post, and worked with U.S. Senators Edward Brooke and Bob Dole. Smith's first major book, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times, was a finalist for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize. He has also written An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (1984); The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation (1986); and Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation (1993). His 1997 biography of Robert R. McCormick, The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick received the Goldsmith Book Prize awarded by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1998. In 2014 Smith published On His Own Terms: A life of Nelson Rockefeller. Between 1987 and 2001, Smith served as director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa; the Dwight D. Eisenhower Center in Abilene, Kansas; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and the Reagan Center for Public Affairs in Simi Valley, California; and the Gerald R. Ford Museum and Library in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, Michigan. In December 2001, Smith became director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. In October, 2003 he was appointed the first Executive Director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. The Harvard Century tells the story of how Harvard, America's oldest and foremost institution of higher learning, has become synonymous with the nation, their goals and standards reflecting each other, each setting the other's agenda. It is also a colorful and intimate 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. Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with about 6,800 undergraduate students and about 14,000 postgraduate students. Established in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning. Its history, influence, wealth, and academic reputation have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. The Massachusetts Great and General Court authorized Harvard's founding. In its early years, Harvard College primarily trained Congregational and Unitarian clergy, although it has never been formally affiliated with any denomination. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, and by the 19th century, Harvard had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites. Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's long tenure (1869-1909) transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a modern research university; Harvard was a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. A. Lawrence Lowell, who succeeded Eliot, further reformed the undergraduate curriculum and undertook aggressive expansion of Harvard's land holdings and physical campus. James Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II; he began to liberalize admissions after the war. The university is composed of eleven principal academic units-ten faculties and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study-with campuses throughout Greater Boston: its 209-acre original undergraduate campus is centered on Harvard Yard in Cambridge, approximately 3 miles northwest of Boston; the business school and many athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium, are across the Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical, dental, and public health schools are in the Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is worth $40.9 billion, making it the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university. While the nominal cost of attendance is high, the university's sizeable endowment allows it to offer generous, no-loan financial aid packages and use need-blind admission. The Harvard Library is the world's largest academic library system, comprising 79 individual libraries holding about 20.4 million items. Harvard's alumni include 8 U.S. presidents, more than 30 foreign heads of state, 188 living billionaires, 369 Rhodes Scholars, and 252 Marshall Scholars.[25][26][27] As of March 2020, 160 Nobel laureates, 18 Fields Medalists, and 14 Turing Award winners have been affiliated as students, faculty, or researchers. In addition, Harvard students and alumni have won 10 Academy Awards, 48 Pulitzer Prizes, and 108 Olympic medals (46 gold, 41 silver, and 21 bronze), and founded many notable companies worldwide.