Oxford University is probably the best-known university on the planet. It is certainly the oldest in the English speaking world. Even though the United Kingdom is no longer the major power it once was, the University of Oxford remains in the top group of institutions in all the international league tables. The last fifty years have seen many changes but the quality of the institution endures. Just how this has been achieved is illustrated in this book by taking the personal view of one academic who completed a fifty year career at the University, most of it at a single College, rising from a freshman undergraduate to become finally head of the Department of Chemistry, the largest such department in the western world. The account will be of interest to visitors to Oxford and particularly to those who contemplate studying or researching at the University. It is a true home of scholars with some magnificent buildings, libraries, laboratories and even gardens: a place of which Britain can be proud, but an international asset not merely a local one.