This quote from President Steven B. Sample’s introduction to The University of Southern California: 1880 to 2005 sets the tone for the story that follows, a celebration of the growth (and growing pains) of an institution that started life as a single wooden building in a provincial Western city of 11,000 souls looking to define itself.

This landmark book is the first comprehensive history of USC published since 1969; in it, authors Sarah Lifton and Annette Moore trace both the growth of the university and the changing face of its “hometown,” inextricably linked throughout the century and a quarter of its history.  Running nearly 300 pages, the book is filled with photos – some familiar, many that haven’t been seen for years – anecdotes and sidebars on both serious and not-so-serious episodes and individuals in our history.

For example, there’s a full-page sidebar tracing the history of beloved mascot George Tirebiter; another on the rise of radio station KUSC from its beginnings in 1946; one on the “Days of Concern” in the tumultuous 1960s; a profile of the transformative administrator Zohrab Kaprielian, a pivotal figure in USC’s emergence as a research university in the 1970s; the magic of the 1984 Olympic Games, when USC celebrated its athletic tradition by inviting all its current and past Olympians to a dinner under the stars in the Coliseum; Nobel Laureate George Olah; and the innovative leadership course co-taught for the past 10 years by Sample and leadership guru Warren Bennis.

Fully indexed and with more than 40 pages of appendices listing leaders and others who have shaped the university’s remarkable story, this book should serve as both a resource and a delight for all of us who have watched USC develop over the decades.

- Susan Heitman