The Marketplace of Ideas Reform and Resistance in the American University by Louis Menand

The Marketplace of Ideas Reform and Resistance in the American University by Louis Menand Louis Menand is critiquing the concept of a liberal education in todays world. He is doing this from the point of view of a professor inside the university system. The book is focused on what happened in fairly recent history.




There is a lot on the production and dissemination of knowledge. This is focused on teaching and research. Libraries are not that well covered in this book. There is more about the creative process of selecting what will be taught inside a university. A liberal education is often thought of as a way to teach people how to learn and grow on their own.


Louis Menand covers recent ideas; interdisciplinary education, the focus and creation of humanities degrees, and common beliefs of professors. Some of it is quite topical: the liberal bias in the professorship and how students are chosen based on the needs of the university are gone over.


This book is a quality title. It is a professor writing for a more general audience. The book is part of a larger series called Issues of Our Time edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.