Ethan Ris. Other People’s Colleges: The Origins of Higher Education Reform Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2022. 368 pp.

Abstract

The achievements of Ethan Ris’s first book, Other People’s Colleges: The Origins of Higher Education Reform , are numerous. Rare among histories of higher education, he brings together two distinct fields, sociology and history, to contribute to three different conversations regarding (1) the history of American higher education; (2) the study of philanthropy and civil society; and (3) the history of what has been called “American Political Development.” 1 As a result, he does something even rarer—he not only offers snapshots of interesting moments in higher education that have transcended their time and place, but also presents an original theory of institutional change.