The Battle of the Classics

I can't imagine a more vivid or important book for our times in higher education. Eric Adler is a clear-eyed, unflappable, humane scholar and culture critic who looks to the past, especially the nineteenth century in American education, to find arguments that may help us see our way forward through the swamp that seeps around us. He advocates for intellectual rigor, for keeping a steady eye on quality, for addressing questions of central concern to everyone who lives and breathes. He sees, quite rightly, that a diverse curriculum will force students (often against their inclinations) to look beyond themselves at the things that all of us share. Education represents a drawing out, as the root word indicates. It's a move toward the universal, finding common ground in a kind of plurality that never loses sight of quality. I love this book, which speaks to our current confusion, and recommend it strongly. -- Jay Parini, author of Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America Professor Adler's case for the humanities is lively, incisive, historically informed, and, above all, timely. There has never been a greater need for such a defense. A thorough researcher and a clear writer who understands the issues and the stakes and conveys them logically yet with an appropriate affection for the hard-won literary heritage bequeathed us, Professor Adler is the ideal person to undertake it. -- Carl J. Richard, author of Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts: How the Ancients Inspired the Founding Fathers