“I congratulate Jerry Jacobs for the rigor of his research and the strenuousness of his arguments. There is revealing new information and necessary clarity and clarification in these pages. His critique of some of the most egregious assaults on the disciplines is especially noteworthy, and the case studies are valuable. This is a book that we need.”

Harvey J. Graff, Ohio State University

“Jerry Jacobs’s new book provides the missing counterpoint to the fanfare for interdisciplinary collaboration that has swept over much of academe during the last three decades. Thanks to Jacobs’s creative and painstaking research, we now know that disciplines are not the ‘silos’ they are so often made out to be; instead, they are surprisingly open to good ideas and new methods developed elsewhere. Nor are universities rigidly bound to the disciplines—instead, they, routinely foster interdisciplinary work through dozens of organized research centers. This book is more than a necessary corrective. It is a well-crafted piece of social science, equally at home in the worlds of intellectual history, organizational studies, and quantitative methods.  It deserves to be read by all who care about the future of universities—defenders and critics of the disciplines alike.”

Steven G. Brint, University of California, Riverside

“At a time of undue hoopla about interdisciplinarity, this is a sobering, highly readable, and data-driven defense of retaining disciplinary units as the primary mode of organizing research universities. A must read for those concerned with the future of knowledge innovation.”

Myra H. Strober, Stanford University

“This is a timely, subtle and much needed evaluation of interdisciplinarity as a far reaching goal sweeping around the globe. Jerry Jacobs sets new standards of discussion by documenting with great new data the long term fate of interdisciplinary fields and the centrality of disciplines to higher education and the modern research university.”

Karin Knorr Cetina, University of Chicago

“An important work. . . . Jacobs puts his knowledge of the university and his keen sociological eye to good use and bases his discussion on existing studies and on primary and secondary data. His use of citation analyses to explore the issue of the flow of information among disciplines is particularly impressive, as is his chapter-long analysis of the interdisciplinary limitations of the field of American studies. . . . Highly recommended.”

Choice