This volume investigates the historical standing of eighteenth-century Oxford, challenging the long-standing academic perception that the university was a period of stagnation between the Stuart era and Victorian reforms. The editors, Peregrine Horden and Robin Darwall-Smith, compile scholarly contributions that utilize archival evidence and institutional records to re-evaluate the intellectual and social life of the university during this specific timeframe. The work argues that the 'unloved' century was, in fact, a period of significant internal development and complex institutional adaptation.

Scholars and historians of higher education recognize this volume as a specialized contribution to the historiography of British universities. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which is intended for researchers and students of institutional history.