Eight essays discuss the relation of urban patterns of intellectual life and academic forms of higher learning. Themes that run through the essays include: the increasing incorporation of academic culture into the center of American life, socially and intellectually, is accompanied and causally related to a progressive impoverishment of the public sphere; and intellectuals turned to academic culture as a hedge against the market--whether to insist upon the superiority of honor to market values, or for a sanctuary from intellectual chaos and competitiveness, or to purify and clarify discourse, even at the risk of social irrelevance. Part I contains three essays on 19th century origins of academic culture. The are: "The Cultures of Intellectual Life: The City and the Professions";"Science and the Culture of American Communities"; and "The Erosin of Public Culture: Cities, Discourses, and Professional Disciplines." Part II focuses on 20th century patterns, in four essays: "E.R.A. Seligman and the Vocation of Social Science,""The Emergence of the New York Intellectuals: Modernism, Cosmopolitanism, and Nationalism,""The Historian and Public Life: Charles A. Beard and the City," and "Lionel Trilling and American Culture." A final essay is titled "Academic Knowledge and Political Democracy in the Age of the University." An epilogue concludes the volume. (Reference notes accompany each essay.) (JDD)