The paradigmatic values underlying British and German higher education emphasise personal
growth the wholeness of the individual intellectual freedom and the pursuit of knowledge
which cumulatively can be viewed as a form of academic essentialism. However these concepts
were generated within a particular cultural and historical context which has largely been
supplanted by neoliberalism. This book studies the emergence over the last twenty years of
trends that define themselves in opposition to the traditional university ethos. It addresses
the first experiments with private universities in both the United Kingdom and Germany the
instigation of bidding and competition for funding the assertion of a practical over a
theoretical focus in British teacher education and the contrasting views of their institutions
held by British and German students and staff. It shows how the antithesis of a neoliberal
university system that of the former German Democratic Republic was transformed under the
impact of unification policies. The author also analyses important social issues such as
gender in relation to the academic profession highlighting how the individual may feel
atomised despite a discourse of equality. Finally the two higher education systems are
examined within the context of the Bologna Process which in many respects embraces academic
capitalism - the epitome of neoliberalism. The book encompasses both qualitative and
quantitative research spanning two decades of scholarship and reflects the author's profound
engagement with universities and with British and German academic culture.
