Universities in Politics: Case Studies from the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History)

Universities today can hardly be accused of ivory tower isolationism. The political views of today's students and their professors have been heard loud and clear from Prague to Paris, from Berkeley to Columbia. This phenomenon is not a new one, however. Here four eminent historians analyze separate instances when universities were called upon to play a role in politics during the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, a time when both the universities and the modern state system were coming into being.