Edward Shils and his Portraits

2019 ◽  
pp. 191-201
Author(s):  
Bryan S. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
London School ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Corporate University ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
Edward Shils ◽  
London School Of Economics ◽  
The University

Edward Shils’ Portraits offers various intellectual biographies of major figures that played a large role in his life, mainly at the University of Chicago. The list is diverse including economists, sociologists, natural scientists, and historians of the ancient world. The diversity illustrates the breadth of Shils’ academic work. The famous Committee for Social Thought was a key institution in Shils’ intellectual development and, while Portraits can be read as a history of the University of Chicago during the twentieth century, Shils was a trans-Atlantic intellectual with close connections to Peterhouse College Cambridge and the London School of Economics. Portraits is a celebration of the Chicago tradition created by Robert Maynard Hutchins University President (1929-1945) for the in-depth study of ‘great books’, but Shils concludes with a nostalgic reflection on the end of the ‘age of books’. The narrative is haunted by the figure of Max Weber, whose rationalization thesis has been borne out with the rise of the bureaucratic corporate university and the narrow specialization of research.

Edward Shils (1910–1995)

1995 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julius Gould
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Chicago School ◽  
Advisory Board ◽  
National Council ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Edward Shils ◽  
The University

EDWARD SHILS WAS A PROLIFIC, FORMIDABLE AND unconventional sociologist. Sustained by his immense learning and extraordinary memory, and following the traditions of Max Weber and of the Chicago School, he brought other disciplines (notably European social and political thought) to bear upon his sociology. Over his long and productive lifetime he held positions in the most distinguished of universities: in England these included the LSE, Manchester and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He regularly spent about half of every year in Cambridge. Above all he was a loyal and long-serving teacher at the University of Chicago where he was distinguished service professor and had been among those who established the Committee of Social Thought. His scholarship was recognized in the USA by the invitation of the US National Council on the Humanities to give the prestigious Jefferson Lecture in 1979 and in Europe by the award of the Balzan Prize for service to general sociology in 1983. Government and Opposition has itself lost a most valued contributor and member of its Advisory Board.

scholarly journals Book Reviews

1962 ◽  
Vol 118 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-492
Author(s):  
H. Th. Fischer ◽  
Rodney Needham ◽  
E. Postel-Coster ◽  
Melville J. Herskovits ◽  
H. Jans ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Jersey ◽  
London School ◽  
Test Case ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Southeastern China ◽  
London School Of Economics ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

- Melville J. Herskovits, Helmut Schoeck, Relativism and the study of man. Princeton, New Jersey, W. van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1961; pp. x + 259., James M. Wiggins (eds.)- E. Postel-Coster, H. Jans, Volkenkundige Encyclopedie, W. de Haan n.v., Zeist en Daphne, Gent 1962. 250 blz. tekst, 48 blz. ills., en tekeningen in de tekst.- H. Th. Fischer, Rodney Needham, Structure and sentiment. A test case in social anthropology. The University of Chicago Press, 1962. 126 pp. text.- R.E. Downs, Maurice Freedman, Lineage organization in Southeastern China. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 18, London, 1958. IX and 151 pp.- Carl A. Schmitz, Raymond Firth, History and traditions of Tikopia. The Polynesian Society, Memoir No. 32. Wellington 1961. 203 pp., 2 Maps, Index.- J. van Baal, Carl A. Schmitz, Bieträge zur Ethnographie des Wantoat Tales, Nordost Neuguinea. Kölner Ethnologische Mitteilungen, dl. 1, Köln 1960; 226 pp.- Jacob Vredenbregt, Etudes rurales. Revue trimestrielle publiée par l’école pratique des Hautes Etudes - Sorbonne. Sixiéme Section: Sciences économiques en sociales. Mouton & Co, Parijs, Den Haag. 1961.

Conversations with Emeritus Professor Stroud Francis Charles (Toby) Milsom: A Journey from Heretic to Giant in English Legal History

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Dingle
Keyword(s):  
Legal History ◽  
University Of Pennsylvania ◽  
London School ◽  
Public Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
University Of Cambridge ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
London School Of Economics ◽  
The University

AbstractLesley Dingle, founder of the Eminent Scholars Archive at Cambridge, gives a further contribution in this occasional series concerning the lives of notable legal academics. On this occasion, the focus of her attention is Stroud Francis Charles (Toby) Milsom QC BA who retired from his chair of Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge in 2000 after a distinguished career as a legal historian at the universities of Oxford, London School of Economics and St John's College Cambridge. His academic life and contentious theories on the development of the Common Law at the end of the feudal system in England were discussed in a series of interviews at his home in 2009. At the core are aspects of his criticism of the conclusions of the nineteenth century historian Frederick William Maitland, upon which the teaching of the early legal history of England was largely based during much of the 20th century. Also included are insights into his research methods in deciphering the parchment Plea Rolls in the Public Records Office, and anecdotes relating to his tenure as Dean at New College Oxford (1956–64) as well as associations with the Selden Society: he was its Literary Director, and later President during its centenary in 1987. Professor Milsom also briefly talked of his memories of childhood during WWII and his inspirational studies as a student at the University of Pennsylvania (1947–48).

John W. Boyer, The University of Chicago: A History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 676pp. ISBN: 9780226242514

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger L. Geiger
Keyword(s):  
Higher Learning ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Democratic Institution ◽  
American Universities ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Learning ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of The University ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

This chapter reviews the book The University of Chicago: A History (2015), by John W. Boyer. Founded in 1892, the University of Chicago is one of the world’s great institutions of higher learning. However, its past is also littered with myths, especially locally. Furthermore, the university has in significant ways been out of sync with the trends that have shaped other American universities. These issues and much else are examined by Boyer in the first modern history of the University of Chicago. Aside from rectifying myth, Boyer places the university in the broader history of American universities. He suggests that the early University of Chicago, in its combination of openness and quality, may have been the most democratic institution in American higher education. He also examines the reforms that overcame the chronic weaknesses that had plagued the university.

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