Despite its origins in European models, the practice of art history in the United States has evolved into institutional protocols distinct from those of countries such as Germany, France, England, and the Netherlands. Fourteen international scholars examine how these varying disciplinary practices might be characterized, in theory and actuality, in the past and the present, comparing the function of higher education in different national contexts and the extent that professionalization encourages or limits critical innovation. Michael F. Zimmermann is deputy director of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, Germany.