Jim Downs is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Columbia University. Jennifer Manion is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Rutgers University.

"This extraordinary collection of essays by young scholars and leaders in the profession raises questions about our own life choices. Taking Back the Academy! sometimes made me weep and sometimes made me angry. It will lead everyone to probe the meaning and purpose of the scholarly enterprise." -- Alice Kessler-Harris, author of In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest forEconomic Citizenship in 20th-Century America

• Foreword, Eric Foner James T. Downs, Jr. and Jennifer Manion, Bench Talk I. Student Activism Student Movements -- Beyond the University Eileen Eagan, Teaching Student Activism Vania Markarian, Debating Tlatelolco: Thirty Years of Public Debates about the Mexican Student Movement of 1968 Martin Klimke, Between Berlin and Berkeley, Frankfurt and San Francisco: The Student Movements of the 1960s in Transatlantic Perspective II. Students in Unions -- Rethinking the University Anita Seth, Unionizing for a More Democratic and Responsive University Kimberly Phillips-Fein, What is a University? Anti-Union Campaigns in Academia John McMillian, Where Have All the Politics Gone? A Graduate Student's Reflections III. Academic Activism: Historians for Social Justice Nancy A. Hewitt, The Glass Tower: Half Full or Half Empty? David Rosner, Toxic Torts: Historians in the Courtroom Glenda Gilmore, The Most Craven Abdication of Democratic Principles: On the U.S. Attack in Iraq IV. Bridging the Gap Between Academia and Activism Drucilla Cornell and Kitty Krupat, Forging Activist Alliances: Identity, Identification, & Position Jennifer Manion, Calling All Liberals; or, Connecting Feminist Theory, Activism, and History Kathleen M. Brown and Tracey M. Weis, Producing for Use and Teaching the Whole Student: Can Pedagogy be a Form of Activism? James T. Downs, Jr., Teaching Across the Color Line: A Warning About Identity Politics in the Classroom Jesse Lemisch, 2.5 Cheers for Bridging the Gap Between Academia and Activism; Or Stay and Fight. To Which is added an Account of Radical Scholars/Activists in the Wake of the Iraq War