The New Princeton Companion

The definitive single-volume compendium of all things Princeton

The New Princeton Companion is the ultimate reference book on Princeton University’s history and traditions, personalities and key events, and defining characteristics and idiosyncrasies. Robert Durkee brings a unique insider’s perspective to the school’s dramatic transformation over the past five decades, showing how it has become more multicultural, multiracial, and multinational, all the while advancing its distinctive academic mission.

Featuring more than 400 entries presented alphabetically, this wide-ranging collection covers topics from academic departments, cultural resources, and student organizations, hoaxes, and pranks to athletic teams, the town of Princeton, and university presidents. There are entries on coeducation, women, people of color, traditionally underrepresented groups, the diversification of campus iconography, and the protest activity that helped to usher in many of these changes. This marvelous compendium also includes annotated maps tracing the growth of the campus over more than two and a half centuries, lists ranging from prizewinners of many kinds to Olympic medalists, and an illustrated calendar that highlights something that happened in Princeton’s history on every day of the year.

Now completely updated, revised, and expanded from the classic 1978 edition, The New Princeton Companion tells you virtually everything there is to know about this remarkable institution of higher learning, revealing what it stands for, what it aspires to, and how it evolved from a tiny colonial college to one of the most acclaimed research universities in the world.