During his four years as the tenth Chancellor of Berkeley (2013-17), Nicholas B. Dirks was confronted by crises arguably more challenging than those faced by any other college administrator in the contemporary period. This thoughtfully candid book, emerging from deep reflection on his turbulent time in office, offers not just a gripping insider's account of the febrile politics of his time as Berkeley's leader, but also decades of nuanced reflection on the university's true meaning (at its best, to be an aspirational 'city of intellect'). Dirks wrestles with some of the most urgent questions with which educational leaders are presently having to engage: including topics such as free speech and campus safe spaces, the humanities' contested future, and the real cost and value of liberal arts learning. His visionary intervention - part autobiography, part practical manifesto - is a passionate cri de c?ur for structural changes in higher education that are both significant and profound.

Preface; Introduction; Part I. A Personal History: 1. The Professor; 2. The Dean; 3. Chancellor tales; Part II. A History of the Future: 4. Genealogies of the university; 5. Ideas of the university; 6. The multiversity; 7. Reimagining the university; Afterword; Acknowledgements; Bibliography; Index.

Nicholas B. Dirks served as Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, between 2013 and 2017. He is currently President and CEO of the historic New York Academy of Sciences, founded in 1817. Previous positions he has held include Executive VP and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University, where he was also the Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and History. Professor Dirks is the author of Autobiography of an Archive (2015), The Scandal of Empire (2006), Castes of Mind (2001, for which he won the Lionel Trilling Award), and The Hollow Crown (Cambridge University Press, 1987). He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a senior member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, he has been a MacArthur fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and has also held a Guggenheim fellowship.