The ancient University of Oxford was established in a medium-sized medieval market town in the late eleventh century and for some six hundred years principally served the needs of the English church. By the mid-nineteenth century, both town and university had been marginalized by the new forces of liberalism, nationalism, and industrialization. Many continental universities, similarly disadvantaged by their location and religious raisons d'etre, simply disappeared in the course of the nineteenth century. Oxford, however, went on to become one of the world’s leading centres of research and teaching. This volume traces Oxford’s improbable rise from a provincial backwater to a global colossus. It is a story not of entitlement but of hard work, difficult decisions, and a creative use of limited resources and advantages.