University in Turmoil

Immanuel Wallerstein was Senior Research Fellow in Sociology at Yale from 2000 until his death in 2019. From 1976 to 1999, he was Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University (SUNY), where he founded and directed the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations. From 1975 until his death he spent part of every year at the Maison des sciences de l’homme in Paris. Wallerstein was recognized for his brilliance the world over. His many books and countless articles have been translated into dozens of languages. Of them, his world-renowned four-volume history of The Modern World-System is a masterful examination of the Western world from 1500 to the modern era. He is now and will be for time to come considered by many to be the most influential social scientist of his era.Katharine Wallerstein, PhD, is an independent scholar and associate researcher at Centre de recherche sur les arts et le langage, EHESS. She is the director of the Paris-based Wallerstein Institute for World Futures.

“Immanuel Wallerstein models the sort of systematic approach we need to take as we grapple with what the university might become. Before attending to any of the specificities regarding events at Columbia, he considers what a university is, practically and ideally, and what sort of challenges the university faces at this point in history. Clarifying these points allows him to situate the events at Columbia, particularly with respect to the use of violence, in terms of appropriate goals and the tactics best suited for achieving them. This is a useful guide for thinking in a crisis.”Jodi Dean, Professor of Political Science, Hobart and William Smith College“At once accessible and uncompromising, University in Turmoil explains what the university is, how it is governed, and why it matters—especially in moments of crisis. Immanuel Wallerstein shows how student movements, state power, and global politics are not external pressures on higher education, but the social forces that give the institution its meaning. Sharp, unflinching, and prophetic, “University in Turmoil is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand why the university remains a contested and consequential site of struggle—decades after its initial publication.”Davarian L. Baldwin, Professor of American Studies, Trinity College“This was an important but often neglected book when Wallerstein first published it at the end of the sixties. In it, there is exceptional analysis of the location of the university in American society and a substantive defense of academic freedom and the role of critical intellectuals in politics. While antedating Wallerstein’s later analysis of student-led world revolutions and antisystemic movements, it is an illuminating text of his early thinking. In an important sense, this text shows the salience of Wallerstein’s voice for the current era in which the key issues addressed here are in dire need of renewed interrogation—and Wallerstein shows the way.”Christopher Chase-Dunn, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California-Riverside, and founder and former editor of the Journal of World-Systems Research“This book is as relevant today as it was when it was first published. For Wallerstein, the university was a place of opposition—to government’s objectives, to parts of society, and among its members who debate ideas. For Wallerstein, the university is not a place to support government interests. This idea today is perhaps more radical, more antithetical to official wisdom, than it was in 1968. The book, thus, comes across as refreshingly original in light of our present circumstances. I have long wondered why this book was not more widely available in our current, tense, political moment. It is with great enthusiasm to see this now being made available again in a fresh edition.”Gregory P. Williams, Associate Professor of Politics and Policy, Simmons University and author of Contesting the Global Order (2021)

• PrefaceKatharine WallersteinPreface to the 1968 editionImmanuel WallersteinIntroductionJodi DeanUniversity in TurmoilThe University as Idea and IdealThe University and the Government: The World SceneThe University and National Social ChangeThe Governance of the UniversityThe Tactics of Social ChangeConclusionAfterwordBruce RobbinsImmanuel Wallerstein and the World Revolution of 1968 in Morningside HeightsFrank Andre GuridyThe Fact of Black Student PowerImmanuel Wallerstein