A Free and Ordered Space: The Real World of the University

Former professor of Renaissance literature and president of Yale University, commissioner-elect of baseball Giamatti is a practiced commentator on the concept of mission in a changing world. In this collection of essays, based on addresses given in the late '70s and '80s to Yale students, the emphasis is on academic mission, on what Giamatti terms ``civility.'' The pieces explore aspects of the university as a place for intellectual exchange that can be intense but should not be damaging to the participants, with input from Giamatti's personal experience with academic unrest. Eloquent in support of the values of a liberal education, these essays bespeak the product of such formation, a man at ease with the cultural flow of past and present. (Nov.)