Allies and Rivals at Lost City Books
Emily J. Levine, Michael Kimmage and Cynthia Miller-Idriss in conversation
Lost City Books in Washington, D.C., hosted an event with Emily J. Levine to discuss her latest book, Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University, published by University of Chicago Press. The book is the first history of the ascent of American higher education seen through the lens of German-American exchange. In a series of compelling portraits, Levine shows how academic innovators on both sides of the Atlantic competed and collaborated to shape the research university. Open borders enabled Americans to unite the English college and German PhD to create the modern research university, a hybrid now replicated the world over. In a captivating narrative spanning one hundred years, Levine upends notions of the university as a timeless ideal, restoring the contemporary university to its rightful place in history.
“Allies and Rivals really contains two stories: it tells the story of the ascent of Germany and America and their ambitions for world power at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, and it also contains more universal lessons about how ideas spread and where innovation comes from; namely, through the open exchange of ideas and competitive emulation. Even — and perhaps especially — with institutional rivals, and perhaps that’s an important reminder in our moment of resurgent nationalism.” — Emily J. Levine
Levine opened the event with an overview of the book and was joined in conversation by authors Michael Kimmage (The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy) and Cynthia Miller-Idriss (Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right). They discussed the implications of the university as a bridge between state and society; the development of academic social contracts; outsiders as a source of competitive edge for academic entrepreneurs; the paradox of the university as a cosmopolitan utopia while being vehicles of empire; and what we can learn from this complex history as it relates to the state of universities in our present day. There were a few questions from the audience, including one from a young viewer wondering who W. E. B. Du Bois was, what he studied, and why he went to Germany. Another question asked was where the future lies with research moving forward, and if there’s a shift in how higher education is used in society — especially in America.
“I think the stars of this story are the individuals who pull the levers of change without which these institutions wouldn’t have been founded…The way that charismatic individuals with visions and an ability to cross between different constituents can forge compromises to create institutions that will stand the test of time. And so, I think that the message has to be both/and: that institutions matter and have to be respected, and we have tremendous agency, as well, to change them.” — Emily J. Levine
The book has received positive reviews in the Los Angeles Review of Books, ECNU Review of Education, German History, CHOICE, and Globe and Mail was selected as Book of the Year by Higher Education Strategy Associates.
