ABSTRACT
The spark that generated this book was a 1987 White Paper, Higher Education: Meeting the Challenge (UK Department for Education and Science 1987), which strengthened central government control of universities in England and Wales almost to the point of nationalising them. The problem was never one of academic freedom (as our noisy campaign demonstrates), but of the economic freedom of universities. Our initial motivation was our view that the academic response to the White Paper was supine, and that academics themselves should be taking a lead in reform.
