The rise of universities

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1. wannabebaristaJan 2024
   Here's my list from 2023 (mostly history with some mythology):

   * Lost Continents by L. Sprague de Camp (1954)

   * Slouching Towards Utopia by J. Bradford DeLong (2022)

   * The Rise of Universities by Charles Homer Haskins (1923)

   * Colonial New England on 5 Shillings a Day by Bill Scheller (2010)

   * The Book of Yōkai by Michael Foster (2015)

   See here for some notes I wrote about these books: https://bcmullins.github.io/interesting-books-2023/

   I find that I am usually one year off when reading new books. I was really excited about Slouching Towards Utopia but didn't get to it until last Spring (though it came out in early Fall 2022).

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2. wannabebaristaDec 2023
   It's funny to see this posted because I'm working on writing up my list right now to put up tomorrow. I've done this each December for a few years now. Here's my list from 2022: https://bcmullins.github.io/interesting-books-2022/

   Here's a gloss on my list for this year:

   "Slouching Towards Utopia" by J. Bradford DeLong (2022). A narrative economic history of the 20th century that focuses on the interaction between policy and economic thought.

   "Lost Continents" by L. Sprague de Camp (1954). Looks at Atlantis and other lost continents as rhetorical devices in ancient history and philosophy, 20th century pseudoscience/pseudohistory, and science fiction.

   "The Hound of the Baskervilles" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1902). My favorite Sherlock Holmes tale yet. Really embraces the themes of gothic literature.

   "The Rise of Universities" by Charles Homer Haskins (1923). Three short lectures on the history of universities. Quite funny! This was part of a project where I looked back at research from 1923: https://bcmullins.github.io/research-from-1923/.

   "The Book of Yokai" Michael Dylan Foster (2015). Explores an interesting aspect of Japanese folklore which has found its way into all sorts of popular media.

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3. wannabebaristaDec 2023
   Each year, I put together lists of the books and articles that I found most interesting. This started out as a way to motivate myself to take better notes when I read. Now, I occasionally also get a nice message from someone who stumbled onto something new. Enjoy!

   Here's a peek at the list:

   * Lost Continents by L. Sprague de Camp (1954)

   * Slouching Towards Utopia by J. Bradford DeLong (2022)

   * The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (1902)

   * The Rise of Universities by Charles Homer Haskins (1923)

   * Colonial New England on 5 Shillings a Day by Bill Scheller (2010)

   * The Book of Yōkai by Michael Foster (2015)

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4. pgApr 2011
   While I would never have called YC the new grad school myself, I think you have a mistakenly utopian view of the origins of western higher education. The "traditional" idea of a liberal education you're describing is largely a creation of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Originally higher education was about training priests, lawyers, and doctors.

   As learning became more prestigious, rich kids started going to universities as well. They were not there for vocational training. But they were the newcomers. The original model of university student was the one Westfall described in his excellent biography of Newton: "a plodding group, narrowly vocational in outlook, lower-class youths grimly intent on ecclesiastical preferment as the means to advancement."

   If anyone wants to learn more about the origins of universities, I'd recommend Haskins's Rise of the Universities.

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