It seems an age since a general history of Oxford University has come out, writes Will Stockland. A. L. Rowse’s amusing and opinionated Oxford in the History of the Nation (1975) was probably the last full-blooded attempt to weave together 800 years of university history for the general reader, notwithstanding Jan Morris’s excellent thematic books.

G. R. Evans, in the paperback edition of The University of Oxford: A New History, offers some explanation of this shortage when she confesses that anyone undertaking such a task sets themselves up to be shot down in flames,

So we should take our hats off to this Cambridge historian — also, incidentally, the author of a history of ‘the other place’ — for sticking her head above the parapet and risking the wrath of scholar and non-academic reader alike.
The book is what I would call a ‘fine whisky’ type of book — to be sipped and savoured in small quantities, rather than consumed at once.
It sits comfortably alongside Christopher Hibbert’s wonderful (now, sadly, out of print) Encyclopaedia of Oxford as an up-to-date companion volume. As well as detailed sections on the university throughout its history — even the development of the teaching syllabus — there are thought-provoking themes. One is how the Oxford student has changed over the centuries from a master’s apprentice in the mediaeval period to the ‘scholar-gentleman’ trained to lead British society and empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Another interesting theme is the complex relationship of university and state, intellectually independent but intertwined with the nation’s politics. This came to a complicated head when Charles I moved his court to the university and took over the colleges during the Civil War.
Some tantalising nuggets of information emerge. Cromwell planned to establish a purely Protestant college, for example, and there are some brilliant character sketches of Oxford figures such as Cardinal Wolsey and C. S. Lewis.
We still need a hearty yarn of the university’s epic story — Diarmaid MacCulloch, perhaps? — but as a concise, readable source of reference this is a welcome addition to any Oxonian bookshelf.

Will Stockland