ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I and World War II, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the war on terrorism. War has had a variety of important effects on US higher education, and indeed the wars in the colonizing era had effects on the colonial colleges. The Civil War devastated much of the South and re-arranged education in the public schools. It is important that readers understand that the federal commitment to research, particularly in the natural and physical sciences, shaped universities in substantial ways. The identity of patriotism, developed in the American Revolution, stretched into modern warfare and international efforts to defeat an enemy. In concert with the Committee on Civil Rights, the 1947 President’s Commission on Higher Education offered a clarion call for equality, in rich language and persistent presentation of data. The American Revolution occurred as the Enlightenment was having a powerful effect, especially among leaders in the colonies.
