By 2007, London's Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine was topping tables of university rankings and research assessments. At the time of its inception in 1907, however, it was but a modest federation of technical and trade colleges, offering – in common with the ‘red-brick universities’ created at the same time – a curriculum heavy on science, technology and medicine, and maintaining close relationships with local industries and trades. For the hundredth anniversary of the college, Lord Oxburgh, then rector, commissioned an official history. The job went to Hannah Gay, a historian of chemistry by profession, but also a former student at the college. What she has delivered does not fall – as most books of this sort do – into the ‘coffee-table’ category. Given full independence, she has researched the archives thoroughly, interviewed several former members of the college, and now reports the results in a scholarly yet readable book.

When writing the history of a university, the historian is usually caught between synthesizing or going down into details. Going for synthesis, the historian can tap into vast archival and other printed sources to build a narrative of the successive administrative decisions made by university rectors. That usually results in a book with chapters such as ‘The era of Rector X.’ Going for the details, the historian can bound the narrative to, say, teaching and research in physical sciences. That results, in turn, in a tale that misses out a great deal. Gay has adopted an astute strategy: some chapters deal in a synthetic way with the governance of the college; others detail the development of individual disciplines. She also discusses themes such as student life, women at the college, the effects of the First and Second World Wars, and science and imperialism, inspired in her choices by the twentieth-century volume (vol. 8) in The History of the University of Oxford, edited by Brian Harrison (Oxford, 1994).

From the perspective of history of science, technology and medicine, the story recounted in Gay's sixteen chapters can be broken down into four periods. In the first, 1907–45, the college consolidated the heritage from the federated colleges to serve the interests of the British Empire. The federation was made up of the Royal College of Chemistry, the Royal School of Mines, the City and Guild of London Institute and the Central Technical College. The government created the new college to acknowledge the importance of technical education relative to economic development. Soon coverage of disciplines was extended to include chemical technology, aeronautics and technical optics, while collaborations with industry were pursued with vigour. During the First and Second World Wars, the military joined industry as an important research partner. In the second period, 1945–67, the college underwent a phase of rapid expansion, with the government increasing its investments in research, while university attendance boomed. A feudal system, with the rector making authoritative decisions about academic affairs, governed the college's life. Biochemistry was reintroduced, and nuclear science, computing and the history of science and technology introduced. Electrical, mechanical, civil, chemical and aeronautical engineering were modernized.

The third period, 1967–85, saw the college undergo deep restructuring. Inside, students, in keeping with new social movements, challenged the governance system to introduce participative modes of decision-making. Outside, the college had to adjust to the new political realities of the United Kingdom, which replaced its empire with a commonwealth, and whose industry was experiencing severe crisis. Meanwhile, research activity began to be organized into research centres and multidisciplinary teams. As a reaction against the perceived dehumanization of science and technology, the college introduced such disciplines as arts, humanities, social sciences and business management. In the fourth period, 1985–2001, the college had to respond to dramatic changes in its relationship with the government, which lowered funding while asking for teaching and research more relevant to society. While routinely performing consulting work, researchers sought to commercialize the fruits of their labours, even (if they could) to patent them. A medical school was created, along with new interdisciplinary research centres, graduate schools and an institute.

In her conclusion, Gay identifies the continuities that have prevailed through all this change. The college has throughout put an emphasis on practical education. It has kept close ties with British industries and the government by performing utilitarian research. Its professoriat has embraced the technocratic spirit that supposes that science and technology can solve society's problems. The culture has been predominantly male, though women have enrolled en masse since the 1970s. Engineering and physical sciences departments have exerted a certain domination over other disciplines such as natural history and medicine. Finally, the college had a continuously troubled relationship with the University of London, until independence was gained in the centenary year of 2007.

What explains the success of Imperial College? That is Gay's simple, central problem, which she handles via an inductive method, rather than by reference to a theory that would have articulated an interpretative framework. Nevertheless, answers emerge. The college has created a milieu that has consistently channelled productivity, by valuing pragmatic, realistic ways of managing teaching and research. It has, on the whole, maintained a well-balanced tension between, on the one hand, the demands of industry and the government, and, on the other, the requirements of the scientific community. Finally, it has encouraged its staff to behave as active producers of knowledge, rather than as its passive consumers.

Overall, Gay's history of Imperial College is an invaluable source of information not only on the college's history, but more broadly on the history of science, technology and medicine in the United Kingdom during the twentieth century. In the foreword, Richard Sykes, then the rector, captures the book in a nutshell: ‘It is striking to learn how closely Imperial has stuck to its 1907 charter with its clear mandate to carry out teaching and research at the highest level, to interact with industry and to focus on the application of science’ (p. vii).