Paul Axelrod and John Reid take the reader through one hundred years of the complex and turbulent history of youth, university, and society. Contributors explore the question of how students have been affected by war and social change and discuss who was able to attend university and who was not, showing how access to privilege has changed over the years.

Focusing on the student experience from the last quarter of the nineteenth century through the troubled 1960s, this collection of fourteen essays examines university life as a part of social and intellectual history. It brings to light the work of a new generation of researchers who have moved away from the narrower concern with institutional growth that has typified most historical writing in this field.

Contributors include Paul Axelrod, Michael Behiels, Judith Fingard, Chad Gaffield, Yves Gingras, Patricia Jasen, Nancy Kiefer, Susan Laskin, Malcolm MacLeod, Lynne Marks, A.B. McKillop, Barry M. Moody, Diana Pederson, Ruth Roach Pierson, James Pitsula, John G. Reid, and Keith Walden.