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The Battle of the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today
These are troubling days for the humanities. In response, a recent proliferation of works defending the humanities has emerged. But, taken together, what are these works really saying, and how persuasive do they prove? The Battle of the Classics demonstrates the crucial downsides of contemporary apologetics for the humanities and presents in its place a historically informed case for a different approach to rescuing the humanistic disciplines in higher education. It reopens the passionate debates about the classics that took place in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America as a springboard for crafting a novel foundation for the humanistic tradition.
Eric Adler demonstrates that current defenses of the humanities rely on the humanistic disciplines as inculcators of certain poorly defined skills such as "critical thinking." It criticizes this conventional approach, contending that humanists cannot hope to save their disciplines without arguing in favor of particular humanities content. As the uninspired defenses of the classical humanities in the late nineteenth century prove, instrumental apologetics are bound to fail. All the same, the book shows that proponents of the Great Books favor a curriculum that is too intellectually narrow for the twenty-first century. The Battle of the Classics thus lays out a substance-based approach to undergraduate education that will revive the humanities, even as it steers clear of overreliance on the Western canon. The book envisions a global humanities based on the examination of masterworks from manifold cultures as the heart of an intellectually and morally sound education.
Eric Adler demonstrates that current defenses of the humanities rely on the humanistic disciplines as inculcators of certain poorly defined skills such as "critical thinking." It criticizes this conventional approach, contending that humanists cannot hope to save their disciplines without arguing in favor of particular humanities content. As the uninspired defenses of the classical humanities in the late nineteenth century prove, instrumental apologetics are bound to fail. All the same, the book shows that proponents of the Great Books favor a curriculum that is too intellectually narrow for the twenty-first century. The Battle of the Classics thus lays out a substance-based approach to undergraduate education that will revive the humanities, even as it steers clear of overreliance on the Western canon. The book envisions a global humanities based on the examination of masterworks from manifold cultures as the heart of an intellectually and morally sound education.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published September 18, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 26, 2021
My college major was in the Humanities -- Russian language and literature. My wife and daughter were English majors. My father was a Classics professor. So I came to this book with a strong bias in favor of studying the Humanities. I wanted the book to help me to articulate positions that I already held intuitively, something that I could use as a cudgel to belabor advocates of STEM about the head and shoulders. Unfortunately, though the author's heart is in the right place, he didn't deliver on what I wanted.
In the beginning of the book, we get a tour through the college curriculum that prevailed in the early nineteenth century, strictly structured around Greek, Latin and moral philosophy, designed to train young men for the ministry, with little or no choice in the course of study. This gave way to the open universities of the late nineteenth century modeled on German research universities and pioneered in the US by Charles Eliot at Harvard, where there was no required course of study. This was then reined back in the next generation to the structure of majors and minors, plus distribution requirements that prevails in most universities today.
Mr. Adler suggests that perhaps we could learn something about the arguments in favor of the Humanities by looking at the arguments made in favor of the old fashioned Classics curriculum at the time when Eliot was consigning it to the garbage heap of history. But all of the arguments in favor of the Classics that he describes were incredibly lame - that they instill mental discipline, that they build good morals, that they are hard, that undergraduates are not to be trusted to choose their courses. Adler correctly points out that these arguments completely ignore the main point - that the Greeks and Romans had some incredibly great and important writers from whom much can still be learned - Homer, Plato, Sophocles, Thucydides, Virgil, Cicero, Tacitus, and the list goes on. And that to truly appreciate them, you need to read them in the languages in which they wrote.
So far so good, but what's the real solution? Here Adler's answer was a let down. He trots out Irving Babbit and his New Humanism. Irving who? He is a guy that most of us have never heard of and properly so because the Babbit philosophy that Adler describes is nothing that I want to follow. At least half the chapter on Babbit is an apology for his failings. And his strengths? I didn't see them. Babbit seems to have thought undergraduates need to be brought up by hand. They have to be guided and improved. Good luck to anyone who would have tried that on me in my college years! In my case it was necessary to give me the freedom to choose so that I could freely come back to a selection of classes that Babbit and Adler would probably have approved. If I had been compelled to take the classes that I chose freely, I would have gotten far less out of them and the quality of my education would have suffered.
I think that it is possible to write a far better book in defense of the Humanities. The Humanities are great. They deserve to be supported and defended. But I'd like to see some better arguments deployed than I found here.
In the beginning of the book, we get a tour through the college curriculum that prevailed in the early nineteenth century, strictly structured around Greek, Latin and moral philosophy, designed to train young men for the ministry, with little or no choice in the course of study. This gave way to the open universities of the late nineteenth century modeled on German research universities and pioneered in the US by Charles Eliot at Harvard, where there was no required course of study. This was then reined back in the next generation to the structure of majors and minors, plus distribution requirements that prevails in most universities today.
Mr. Adler suggests that perhaps we could learn something about the arguments in favor of the Humanities by looking at the arguments made in favor of the old fashioned Classics curriculum at the time when Eliot was consigning it to the garbage heap of history. But all of the arguments in favor of the Classics that he describes were incredibly lame - that they instill mental discipline, that they build good morals, that they are hard, that undergraduates are not to be trusted to choose their courses. Adler correctly points out that these arguments completely ignore the main point - that the Greeks and Romans had some incredibly great and important writers from whom much can still be learned - Homer, Plato, Sophocles, Thucydides, Virgil, Cicero, Tacitus, and the list goes on. And that to truly appreciate them, you need to read them in the languages in which they wrote.
So far so good, but what's the real solution? Here Adler's answer was a let down. He trots out Irving Babbit and his New Humanism. Irving who? He is a guy that most of us have never heard of and properly so because the Babbit philosophy that Adler describes is nothing that I want to follow. At least half the chapter on Babbit is an apology for his failings. And his strengths? I didn't see them. Babbit seems to have thought undergraduates need to be brought up by hand. They have to be guided and improved. Good luck to anyone who would have tried that on me in my college years! In my case it was necessary to give me the freedom to choose so that I could freely come back to a selection of classes that Babbit and Adler would probably have approved. If I had been compelled to take the classes that I chose freely, I would have gotten far less out of them and the quality of my education would have suffered.
I think that it is possible to write a far better book in defense of the Humanities. The Humanities are great. They deserve to be supported and defended. But I'd like to see some better arguments deployed than I found here.
November 2, 2024
I now feel comfortable telling kids in AP Lit about why they're taking the class: to learn how humans throughout mostly the last two hundred years (~1850 to the present, but also we read Antigone) use narrative to better understand themselves and others. They're not "learning skills" or getting "critical thinking": go take a social science or a natural science class for that.
Most of this book just made me realize that young people who love the Big Questions need to read the Big Books. It's sad and hilarious to learn that early students at the Ivies spent so much of their time studying Latin Gerundives and comparing them to the Greek, but it's also sad and not hilarious to see how the Ivies basically gave up on having their students learn anything meaningful around the 1880's because of technophilia and an obsession with being modern. C'mon, we've got Frankenstein to tell us about the dangers of science without a soul. We've got Moby Dick to tell us about the uselessness of systems of classification and social science in the face of death.
And hey: if an 18-year old doesn't want to do the Big Questions, then...maybe don't go to college? But if they do, then colleges should have the courage to require that students engage with some difficult books written a long time ago in addition to some newer stuff, and trust students to make the connections between the problems of power and justice and identity in these difficult books and our problems today. Complexity, doing some translation, ambiguity: that's how a young person learns how to be a human.
Most of this book just made me realize that young people who love the Big Questions need to read the Big Books. It's sad and hilarious to learn that early students at the Ivies spent so much of their time studying Latin Gerundives and comparing them to the Greek, but it's also sad and not hilarious to see how the Ivies basically gave up on having their students learn anything meaningful around the 1880's because of technophilia and an obsession with being modern. C'mon, we've got Frankenstein to tell us about the dangers of science without a soul. We've got Moby Dick to tell us about the uselessness of systems of classification and social science in the face of death.
And hey: if an 18-year old doesn't want to do the Big Questions, then...maybe don't go to college? But if they do, then colleges should have the courage to require that students engage with some difficult books written a long time ago in addition to some newer stuff, and trust students to make the connections between the problems of power and justice and identity in these difficult books and our problems today. Complexity, doing some translation, ambiguity: that's how a young person learns how to be a human.
February 18, 2021
Fairly traditionalist account of how higher education should focus on "the masterworks of sundry cultures." It goes beyond Allan Bloom's very conservative take on what students should be reading (great works from the "West"), The Battle of the Classics raises some important issues about the importance of the humanities are "the best means of shaping students’ souls – contributing visions of the good, the true, and the beautiful that can allow human beings to lead sounder, happier, and more responsible lives." Also suggests that we can't "argue that the humanities serve as a bulwark against “the power of blind tradition and authority” if we ask students blindly to follow our authority in the classroom." On the other hand, while stressing the "content" of the humanities as key, rather than the "skills" they provide or the "market value" they can offer, Adler never actually defines what makes a "masterwork" just that. We can probably agree on, say, Hamlet or One Hundred Years of Solitude, but there's a lot that is left to the imagination...just as there is now when we write our syllabi.
April 20, 2023
Adler presents a coherent, interesting, and well-written account of the humanities demise. The Battle of the Classics is an impressive historical overview of how the humanities moved from studying classical language, literature, and art for substance (his term), to studying these things for “skills” or to prepare one simply for “jobs.” Indeed, this is a massively complex topic, one that would require a complete sociological analysis of a rapidly modernizing country in desperate need of a stable working class. Adler contents himself with a more narrow part of this story, which makes it a readable and insightful book. He draws our attention to Charles Francis Adams Jr, in particular, who launches the opening salvo against the classical humanities by publicly calling for Harvard (his alma mater) to remove Greek as a requirement for entry. This speech seems to have been the speech heard ‘round the world, igniting a firestorm of criticism. The “traditionalists” adopted a “skills-based” approach to the humanities to defend the humanities from its criticism and, ultimately, failed to demonstrate that it serves a unique and important function in the curriculum. In other words, the humanities were reduced to mere means for other ends - these other ends being other, more prestigious, and “scientific” jobs. Because the humanities were presented as good for simply “mental discipline,” they became virtually indistinguishable from any other discipline. Another debate transpires shortly after this, in which the key figure (James McCosh) fails to offer “humanistic justification” (131) for the humanities, again, ceding ground to alien disciplines to legitimate classical studies. The New Humanists attempted to clean up the fallout of this debate, though only staving off any inevitable effects for one or two decades. A favorite of Adler’s, Irving Babbitt, emerges as an important voice in the book. His project, Adler argues, is sufficiently anchored to the Renaissance past and study of classical languages, and “granted to humanists a unique and foundational job: helping students to cultivate their higher selves through the examination of literary, religious, philosophical, and artistic masterworks” (203). Slightly disappointing, I hoped Adler would have spoken a bit more about Babbitt’s disciple-turned-critic, T.S. Eliot, and his criticisms of Babbitt’s humanism. Alas, one book can’t do everything, and Adler succeeds in just about every historical endeavor he undertakes. The Battle of the Classics is a highly readable and interesting work of historical analysis.
Where the book founders, in my opinion, is Adler’s rather meager proposed alternative to a skills-based approach to the humanities. Making up less than ten percent of the book, the final chapter is a, more or less, classical articulation of the humanities. This chapter is not a manifesto, nor as robust an articulation of the humanities as I believe is necessary. Adler believes the humanities are worthwhile because “Profound works of art, literature, philosophy, and religion provide the best means of shaping students’ souls - contributing visions of the good, the true, and the beautiful that can allow humans beings to lead sounder, happier, and more responsible lives” (206). Is education really for, simply, sounder lives? If the humanities are indeed to curb our naturalistic tendencies, ought the result be something a bit more profound than simply “responsible” people? I sense that he is hedging his language a bit. Moreover, there is almost no counsel concerning how his proposal fits into the current higher education paradigm. I think Adler recognizes that the very shape of modern institutional life militates against a substance-based approach to the humanities. A bloated administrative army that allocates money for degrees with “career prospects” seriously works against his approach. This is, of course, to say nothing about the legion of humanities professors who have traded their wisdom birthright for, at this point, anything but the actual humane study of the arts. In this regard, the book fails to live up to the subtitle’s promise. Salvation is not to be found in this book’s pages.
Criticism aside, Adler’s book is a helpful overview of the development of the studia humanitatis, and an interesting historical dive into how the humanities have changed in America, and the chief architects of that change. People will, of course, criticize the book as aristocratic. Advocates of a robust approach to the humanities are always smeared as elitists. Adler, however, does well to dissociate himself from the legitimately elitist aspects of classical humanities studies (by arguing for a wider approach to the canon), and the reader should see that Adler is not looking down on anyone, but calling us back to the dignity and value of the humanities project. I eagerly await his next book that offers a more full-throated path forward for humane education, an education that trains the whole human for virtue and wisdom.
Where the book founders, in my opinion, is Adler’s rather meager proposed alternative to a skills-based approach to the humanities. Making up less than ten percent of the book, the final chapter is a, more or less, classical articulation of the humanities. This chapter is not a manifesto, nor as robust an articulation of the humanities as I believe is necessary. Adler believes the humanities are worthwhile because “Profound works of art, literature, philosophy, and religion provide the best means of shaping students’ souls - contributing visions of the good, the true, and the beautiful that can allow humans beings to lead sounder, happier, and more responsible lives” (206). Is education really for, simply, sounder lives? If the humanities are indeed to curb our naturalistic tendencies, ought the result be something a bit more profound than simply “responsible” people? I sense that he is hedging his language a bit. Moreover, there is almost no counsel concerning how his proposal fits into the current higher education paradigm. I think Adler recognizes that the very shape of modern institutional life militates against a substance-based approach to the humanities. A bloated administrative army that allocates money for degrees with “career prospects” seriously works against his approach. This is, of course, to say nothing about the legion of humanities professors who have traded their wisdom birthright for, at this point, anything but the actual humane study of the arts. In this regard, the book fails to live up to the subtitle’s promise. Salvation is not to be found in this book’s pages.
Criticism aside, Adler’s book is a helpful overview of the development of the studia humanitatis, and an interesting historical dive into how the humanities have changed in America, and the chief architects of that change. People will, of course, criticize the book as aristocratic. Advocates of a robust approach to the humanities are always smeared as elitists. Adler, however, does well to dissociate himself from the legitimately elitist aspects of classical humanities studies (by arguing for a wider approach to the canon), and the reader should see that Adler is not looking down on anyone, but calling us back to the dignity and value of the humanities project. I eagerly await his next book that offers a more full-throated path forward for humane education, an education that trains the whole human for virtue and wisdom.
August 6, 2022
In this book Adler traces problems with contemporary humanities education back to a 19th-century debate and suggests that the humanities have declined because apologists of the humanities in the 19th century mostly offered lame arguments when they were under attack. Adler suggests that we learn from their mistakes and present better arguments today.
In the 19th century, education reformers attacked the Latin- and Greek-based curricula of American and European colleges, arguing that students gained little from mandatory Latin and Greek education and could gain much more from studying modern languages and from having a wider selection of courses from which to choose. They also attacked the Western-centric "Great Books" tradition and suggested offering a wider range of literature. Most defenders of the humanities responded by arguing that Latin and Greek cultivate "mental discipline" (i.e. critical thinking) skills better than any language, but reformers responded that many other languages and subjects can cultivate "mental discipline" just as well if even better than Latin and Greek. They won the debate and consequently introduced all manner of subjects and vocational training to the college curriculum.
Adler is sympathetic with the response of these reformers. If the goal is simply to cultivate "mental discipline," then why force students to study Latin and Greek? Many other subjects can cultivate critical thinking skills, too. Adler suggests that defenders of the humanities failed to distinguish "liberal arts" from "humanities." The former are skills-based, while the latter are not. Classical humanists like Bruni traditionally argued for the humanities not on the basis of "skills" but on the basis that good literature cultivates morals and "encultures" students. Adler also blames language pedagogy for the distaste that reformers felt toward Latin and Greek. Latin and Greek were taught using a grammar-heavy approach that didn't focus on reading classical works in the original to obtain the content of the works themselves (the soul-shaping stuff) but simply to practice grammar.
Adler also points out that by making "skills" the measuring rod of school curricula, they placed curricula in the hands of social scientists, who decide which subjects cultivate the most skills.
In the end, Adler suggests that defenders of the humanities today shouldn't repeat the impotent arguments of men from the 19th century, arguing on the basis of nebulous "skills," but should instead argue for specific content, showing how specific books can cultivate the morals of students. He points to the late 19th, early 20th century humanist Irving Babbit and his "New Humanism" as an example of how he thinks people today should defend the humanities.
Adler excels at describing the 19th-century "Battle of the Classics" and explaining the arguments on each side of the debate. I especially appreciated his ample supply of primary source material. I also find his distinction between liberal arts and humanities helpful, and I think his main critique of focusing on "skills" holds water. However, his solution is weak. Mathematicians, engineers, biologists, etc. can all argue that their disciplines cultivate morality just about as easily as they can argue that they cultivate critical thinking skills. I think Adler is right that humanists must defend the humanities by presenting the merits of specific texts, but condensing this all to "moral cultivation" or "enculturation" presents the same kinds of problems that promoting "skills" does. Adler also argues for a humanities curriculum that equally samples all cultures, showing how all of them promote the same core elements that make a person "human." But I think humanities curricula should prioritize local culture. Almost just as important as understanding what makes a person "human" is understanding what makes him "English" or "Chinese." God gave people not only a common humanity but a common culture with those around them, and these cultures differ across regions. Humanities curricula should reflect and embrace these cultural differences.
In the 19th century, education reformers attacked the Latin- and Greek-based curricula of American and European colleges, arguing that students gained little from mandatory Latin and Greek education and could gain much more from studying modern languages and from having a wider selection of courses from which to choose. They also attacked the Western-centric "Great Books" tradition and suggested offering a wider range of literature. Most defenders of the humanities responded by arguing that Latin and Greek cultivate "mental discipline" (i.e. critical thinking) skills better than any language, but reformers responded that many other languages and subjects can cultivate "mental discipline" just as well if even better than Latin and Greek. They won the debate and consequently introduced all manner of subjects and vocational training to the college curriculum.
Adler is sympathetic with the response of these reformers. If the goal is simply to cultivate "mental discipline," then why force students to study Latin and Greek? Many other subjects can cultivate critical thinking skills, too. Adler suggests that defenders of the humanities failed to distinguish "liberal arts" from "humanities." The former are skills-based, while the latter are not. Classical humanists like Bruni traditionally argued for the humanities not on the basis of "skills" but on the basis that good literature cultivates morals and "encultures" students. Adler also blames language pedagogy for the distaste that reformers felt toward Latin and Greek. Latin and Greek were taught using a grammar-heavy approach that didn't focus on reading classical works in the original to obtain the content of the works themselves (the soul-shaping stuff) but simply to practice grammar.
Adler also points out that by making "skills" the measuring rod of school curricula, they placed curricula in the hands of social scientists, who decide which subjects cultivate the most skills.
In the end, Adler suggests that defenders of the humanities today shouldn't repeat the impotent arguments of men from the 19th century, arguing on the basis of nebulous "skills," but should instead argue for specific content, showing how specific books can cultivate the morals of students. He points to the late 19th, early 20th century humanist Irving Babbit and his "New Humanism" as an example of how he thinks people today should defend the humanities.
Adler excels at describing the 19th-century "Battle of the Classics" and explaining the arguments on each side of the debate. I especially appreciated his ample supply of primary source material. I also find his distinction between liberal arts and humanities helpful, and I think his main critique of focusing on "skills" holds water. However, his solution is weak. Mathematicians, engineers, biologists, etc. can all argue that their disciplines cultivate morality just about as easily as they can argue that they cultivate critical thinking skills. I think Adler is right that humanists must defend the humanities by presenting the merits of specific texts, but condensing this all to "moral cultivation" or "enculturation" presents the same kinds of problems that promoting "skills" does. Adler also argues for a humanities curriculum that equally samples all cultures, showing how all of them promote the same core elements that make a person "human." But I think humanities curricula should prioritize local culture. Almost just as important as understanding what makes a person "human" is understanding what makes him "English" or "Chinese." God gave people not only a common humanity but a common culture with those around them, and these cultures differ across regions. Humanities curricula should reflect and embrace these cultural differences.
March 17, 2021
This book contains both a concise history or US higher education, the study of ancient Greek and Latin and good recommendations for reframing the need for Humanities as part of a well rounded liberal education. The writing style revitalizes the figures who influenced US higher education trends and changes but does so in a contemporary vernacular that is easily accessible. Part of the story includes discourse and great debates of times past. There were some real throwdowns. Internet/social media debates don't compete.
It's quite interesting to learn John Adams' great-great grandson is just the same kind of crank with an axe to grind. Irving Babbitt has too long been forgotten. His vision of the best approach to education and the need for Humanties to produce better citizens and happier individuals has been ignored to the peril of society.
I recommend this book as of interest to anyone who cares about education or has an interest in dusty corners of US history.
It's quite interesting to learn John Adams' great-great grandson is just the same kind of crank with an axe to grind. Irving Babbitt has too long been forgotten. His vision of the best approach to education and the need for Humanties to produce better citizens and happier individuals has been ignored to the peril of society.
I recommend this book as of interest to anyone who cares about education or has an interest in dusty corners of US history.
January 1, 2022
In my view, Adler rightly shows where the value of the humanities lies, but does not go much farther than pointing in that direction. I was expecting more of a defense of the humanities along the lines of Bloom, but that is not, for better or worse, Adler. Babbitt, who Adler touts as having a better defense of the humanities, is an interesting figure, but Adler himself seems to cede too much to his opponents. While the humanities, as he says, are about how we ought to live, he immediately comes down and says there is no definitive answer to this question. That, to me, shoots his entire argument in the foot and lands him back in the position he started in: if there is no good life, then there doesn’t seem to be a way to distinguish, as he says, Plato from pornography. This is unfortunate, because in many ways Adler seems to be quite close to that problem, but never touches it.
June 21, 2022
This was a very dry read. I felt like I had to muddle through Sox chapters to get to the point of the book. I read it for a book club though and the discussions we had helped a lot.
October 11, 2022
Adler's book is somewhat badly sub-titled insofar as it is not necessarily about how a debate from the 1800s can supposedly save the humanities. Instead 'The Battle of the Classics' is a sincere effort to map and discuss the very concept of the humanities in higher education, with a specific reference to the American college and university system, and as a corollary posit a educational paradigm that both rejects specialisation and vocationalisation of education and offers a modified vision of the humanities as a means to educate both the 'inner' and 'outer' student. A complex construct, Adler suggests that educators and students alike can and will benefit from engaging with the humanities that is informed by rich and rewarding content and is oriented away from strict paradigms such as mental training or critical thinking. This may be a simplification, however the text develops a cogent and appreciable model of educational thinking that is well grounded in the preceding historical context of the issue.
This is a very dense book and will not be one that will find a ready audience. Adler focuses over half of his narrative examining American university and college experiences through the consideration of what (at times) might be considered arcane events involving personalities who are very much of their time. A good portion of the book examines the challenges experienced by students and institutions regarding the specific study of ancient Greek and Latin in the 19th Century, and how either the rejection or protection of these (then) compulsory subjects in higher education crystallised the changing nature of academic life in this period. The reader will possibly struggle to retain interest in those chapters due in no small part to the nuance and detail that Adler attempts to present when examining these debates. He does a reasonable job in informing and engaging his readers, however unless one is an assiduous student of educational practice with a focus on classics and American college history the text will be a struggle.
What really marks the effectiveness of this book, or more specifically Adler's contentions about how the humanities can be 'saved' (if that is the appropriate term), is that having gone to immense lengths to discuss and examine the context, the history, the ideas and the personalities the author then presents a very worthy hypothesis that is neither exclusionary nor prescriptive. Adler sees the role of the humanities as an educational construct that not only have a value in and of themselves, assuming that the content of study has been validated as worthy of consideration and substance, but that they can provide a means for students to learn about what it means to be human. It might be said that Adler sees the role of the humanities as being a means to educate us about ourselves both as individuals and as a society, both our internal and external lives. It is a holistic process that need not become a specialised, narrow vocational pathway nor a conservative valuing of such nebulous ideas as 'western civilisation'. The humanities are a means for us to examine our humanity; an educational idea that seems both blatantly obvious yet revolutionary.
Putting aside the complex and esoteric content and ideas of the book 'The Battle of the Classics' is extremely well researched and OUP and Adler are to be commended for supporting the numerous citations with notes at the end of each chapter. The prose is academic in style as one might expect, however Adler does try to bring some personality to his recounting of past events and people. It might be also worthy to look at some of the chapters, particularly that which recounts the history of the idea of the humanities as standalone essays.
So who will read and benefit from Adler's work? Higher education scholars and teachers will have an obvious reason to read 'The Battle of the Classics', particularly if they are in those subjects one might define as the humanities. Secondary teachers will also have some reason to read this book, and anyone interested in the history of college and university study specifically in America will have cause to investigate Adler's work. Outside these audiences I would expect minimal engagement from prospective readers. For those concerned with what the author addresses with his analysis and discussion of the study of the humanities there are plenty of rewards herein.
This is a very dense book and will not be one that will find a ready audience. Adler focuses over half of his narrative examining American university and college experiences through the consideration of what (at times) might be considered arcane events involving personalities who are very much of their time. A good portion of the book examines the challenges experienced by students and institutions regarding the specific study of ancient Greek and Latin in the 19th Century, and how either the rejection or protection of these (then) compulsory subjects in higher education crystallised the changing nature of academic life in this period. The reader will possibly struggle to retain interest in those chapters due in no small part to the nuance and detail that Adler attempts to present when examining these debates. He does a reasonable job in informing and engaging his readers, however unless one is an assiduous student of educational practice with a focus on classics and American college history the text will be a struggle.
What really marks the effectiveness of this book, or more specifically Adler's contentions about how the humanities can be 'saved' (if that is the appropriate term), is that having gone to immense lengths to discuss and examine the context, the history, the ideas and the personalities the author then presents a very worthy hypothesis that is neither exclusionary nor prescriptive. Adler sees the role of the humanities as an educational construct that not only have a value in and of themselves, assuming that the content of study has been validated as worthy of consideration and substance, but that they can provide a means for students to learn about what it means to be human. It might be said that Adler sees the role of the humanities as being a means to educate us about ourselves both as individuals and as a society, both our internal and external lives. It is a holistic process that need not become a specialised, narrow vocational pathway nor a conservative valuing of such nebulous ideas as 'western civilisation'. The humanities are a means for us to examine our humanity; an educational idea that seems both blatantly obvious yet revolutionary.
Putting aside the complex and esoteric content and ideas of the book 'The Battle of the Classics' is extremely well researched and OUP and Adler are to be commended for supporting the numerous citations with notes at the end of each chapter. The prose is academic in style as one might expect, however Adler does try to bring some personality to his recounting of past events and people. It might be also worthy to look at some of the chapters, particularly that which recounts the history of the idea of the humanities as standalone essays.
So who will read and benefit from Adler's work? Higher education scholars and teachers will have an obvious reason to read 'The Battle of the Classics', particularly if they are in those subjects one might define as the humanities. Secondary teachers will also have some reason to read this book, and anyone interested in the history of college and university study specifically in America will have cause to investigate Adler's work. Outside these audiences I would expect minimal engagement from prospective readers. For those concerned with what the author addresses with his analysis and discussion of the study of the humanities there are plenty of rewards herein.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews