A narrative and interpretive history of a major institution of higher education. The authors tell an interesting story, focusing on the people who inhabited the institution, from powerful presidents like John R. Emens to boisterous students like David Letterman, whose fame as a late-night talk show host makes his name a household word. And they trace the history of the institution and its people from the local business people who pushed to establish higher education in a small Midwestern city in the late-19th century to a 21st-century president who spent most of his life in the South.
Bruce Geelhoed is Director for the Center for Middletown Studies and Professor of History at Ball State University. His fields of specialization include American business history and recent American history. He is author of Charles E. Wilson and Controversy at the Pentagon, 1953 to 1957, The Dragon and the Snake (with Millicent Anne Gates), and Margaret Thatcher: In Triumph and Downfall, as well as numerous articles that have appeared in state and regional journals.
Anthony Edmonds has taught at Ball State University since 1969. He is a professor of history, a winner of five outstanding teaching awards, and the author of Joe Louis and The War in Vietnam.
