Universities are condemned for being composed of either idle dreamers or unreflective technicians, depending on which of the conventional wisdoms the critic subscribes to. Residential life is a case in point. Somehow we produce accommodations which manage to be both expensive and inhumane. PROFESSOR ADELMAN approaches the technical problems of residences against the background of an analysis of their role in a university which is a critical and liberating force for its members. Moreover, he deals with these questions from the vantage point of his own experience in and study of the successes and failures of existing residences in Europe and North America. The two postscriptions on Rochdale are worth reading in themselves.