Bonfire of the Humanities

Victor Davis Hanson

"In Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age, Hanson, Heath, and Thornton begin by unsparingly documenting the degeneration of classics. They also reveal the root causes of this decline. They point to academics themselves - their careerist ambitions, incessant self-promotion, and overspecialized, inaccessible work, among other things - as the source of the crisis, and call for a return to "academic populism," a method charaterized by approachable writing, selfless commitment to students and teaching, and respect for the legacy of freedom and democracy that the ancients bequeathed to the West.". "The authors lay out detailed proposals to arrest the decline in humane learning. These proposals, and especially their call for professors to embrace academic populism, merit a fair and widespread hearing. Bonfire of the Humanities should be read by anyone...

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