Veritas: Harvard College and the American Experience [Paperback]

It's impossible to think or write about the history of the United States without taking into consideration the immense role Harvard University has played in shaping our government and culture. In Veritas journalist Andrew Schlesinger shines a historian's light on this remarkable Ivy League institution. His impeccable scholarship, literary craftsmanship, and analytical savvy is inspired. Highly recommended.Many have given their views on Harvard; few, if any, have surpassed this splendid account.Harvard and America have grown up together. Andrew Schlesinger's fascinating book traces that intertwined history and evolution brilliantly.Well researched and highly readable, this book will benefit any academic library supporting programs in history and high education.A spirited academic history sure to attract numerous nonacademic readers.Along with a knack for the occasional well-turned phrase, Schlesinger has an eye for the telling episode.Essential reading. . . . Deft use of apposite quotation and telling vignette enhance his remarkably rich narrative.Andrew Schlesinger fills his Veritas with hundreds of anecdotes and vignettes linking Harvard to the nation's political and intellectual life.Impeccable . . . Veritas is a compelling and relevant tale of Harvard's history.Schlesinger's Veritas stands out in the crowd for its wit and lack of pretense about his alma mater.Andrew Schlesinger tells the fascinating story of Harvard College as an American institution. He examines the important actions and decisions of its leadership from Puritan times to the present.When Josiah Quincy adopted the word veritas (meaning truth) as Harvards motto in the mid-nineteenth century, he saw the mission of the college as seeking new knowledge in order to come closer to God. It was a radical proposition. The imperatives of veritas are openness, freedom of thought, clash of opinions, resolution, truth-telling. In Veritas, Andrew Schlesinger traces some of the conflicts in Harvards history bels!