Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age
With humor, lucidity, and unflinching rigor, the acclaimed authors of Who Killed Homer? and Plagues of the Mind unsparingly document the degeneration of a central, if beleaguered, discipline—classics—and reveal the root causes of its decline. The guity parties are academics themselves—their careerist ambitions, incessant self-promotion, and overspecialized scholarship, among other things—as the progenitors of the crisis, and call for a return to “academic populism,” an approach characterized by accessible, unspecialized writing, selfless commitment to students and teaching, and respect for the legacy of freedom and democracy that the ancients bequeathed to the West.
“Illustrates the more general and persistent betrayal of lost objectivity with which the academic world has long been plagued.”
—Culture Wars
“For those who wish to give the classics a primary place in the education of our youth.”
—Sunday Times
“Readers who enjoy common sense expressed in vigorous prose are going to love The Bonfire of the Humanities.”
—Academic Questions