In 1955 the former University College of the South West was granted a royal charter and became the University of Exeter. Its development over the the subsequent six decades is the subject of this book. This is the history of an institution that is also a community, a focus of teaching and research set within a particular environment but also part of the wider world.

Jeremy Black has drawn on a range of sources, from archive material to personal recollections of staff and students, past and present, to record and analyse the story of the university as it engaged with the need to expand and evolve, while responding to constant financial and political pressures. The result is a comprehensive portrait of this unique ‘city on the hill’.