Book excerpt: The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Arts and Science is older than the university itself. Chartered in 1827 as King’s College, it officially opened in 1843 with four professors and twenty-seven students. In this lively and engaging book, Robert Craig Brown vividly recounts the 150-year history of the faculty’s staff, students, and achievements. Brown takes readers on a sweeping journey though the development and growth of the faculty through wartime and peace, depression and prosperity. He covers teaching and research in the vast array of subjects offered, administrative and financial concerns, and the Faculty’s significant contributions to higher education in Canada. Throughout, Brown traces how the faculty evolved past its early defining traits of elitism and exclusivity to its current form – a remarkably diverse body with students of all ages, backgrounds, and academic interests.