Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: The Traditional Function and Character of American Learned Socieites -- Differences between academic and professional associations -- Association governance prior to WWII -- The postwar period -- Learned-society influence within the nationalizing disciplines -- Relations with the federal government -- Association governance in the postwar period -- Chapter 3: The Caucus Movement -- Participants in the caucus movement -- Early coalitions -- Decline of caucus activism -- Chapter 4: Dissent in the American Political Science Association -- Relations with the federal government -- Influence within the field -- The Caucus for a New Political Science -- The radical critique -- History of the caucus -- Minority groups in the APSA -- Impact the caucus movement on the APSA -- Chapter 5: The Radical Challenge in the Modern Language Association of America -- The MLA and the profession -- The radical caucus -- The radical critique -- Caucus strategies and activities -- The radical caucus moves out -- Impact of the radical caucus on the MLA -- Chapter 6: Liberal Reform in the American Physical Society -- The first signs of dissidence -- Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action -- The forum on Physics and Society -- The impact of the forum within the APS -- Chapter 7: The Academic Recession and the Future of American Learned Societies -- Sources of the employment crisis -- The nature of the job crisis and its impact on learned societies -- The trend toward faculty unionism. 

"A report prepared for the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education."
Includes bibliographical references (pages 115-124).