Philip N. Alexander traces MIT's evolution from a modest technical school to one of the world's preeminent research universities through the lives and tenures of its first nine presidents. Each president faced different challenges and opportunities, from establishing the school's identity in competition with Harvard to navigating world wars and Cold War expansion. Alexander shows how presidential decisions shaped not just policies but the intellectual culture that made MIT distinctive: its emphasis on practical application, its integration of science and engineering, and its eventually complicated relationship with military research. The book examines how MIT's identity as a polytechnic evolved into something more comprehensive while retaining core commitments to hands-on learning and technological innovation. Alexander traces the growth of MIT's research enterprise, its expanding student body, and its changing relationship with industry and government. He examines conflicts over co-education, curriculum reform, and protest against war research that roiled the campus at various points. The book situates MIT within the broader history of American higher education while attending to the particular characteristics that made this institution consequential. It reveals how leadership choices accumulate over time to create institutional cultures that outlast any individual.