In Defense of a Liberal Education

by Fareed Zakaria

Overview

CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria argues for a renewed commitment to the world’s most valuable educational tradition.

The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree." These messages are hitting home: majors like English and history, once very popular and highly respected, are in steep decline.

"I get it," writes Fareed Zakaria, recalling the atmosphere in India where he grew up, which was even more obsessed with getting a skills-based education. However, the CNN host and best-selling author explains why this widely held view is mistaken and shortsighted.

Zakaria eloquently expounds on the virtues of a liberal arts education—how to write clearly, how to express yourself convincingly, and how to think analytically. He turns our leaders' vocational argument on its head. American routine manufacturing jobs continue to get automated or outsourced, and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated within a few years. Engineering is a great profession, but key value-added skills you will also need are creativity, lateral thinking, design, communication, storytelling, and, more than anything, the ability to continually learn and enjoy learning—precisely the gifts of a liberal education.

Zakaria argues that technology is transforming education, opening up access to the best courses and classes in a vast variety of subjects for millions around the world. We are at the dawn of the greatest expansion of the idea of a liberal education in human history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393247695
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/30/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	992,841
File size:	647 KB

About the Author

Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s flagship international affairs show, Fareed Zakaria GPS, as well as weekly columnist for the Washington Post. He is the author of four New York Times bestsellers, including his last one, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

1 Coming to America 15

2 A Brief History of Liberal Education 40

3 Learning to Think 72

4 The Natural Aristocracy 106

5 Knowledge and Power 135

6 In Defense of Today's Youth 150

Notes 171

Acknowledgments 201

Editorial Reviews

…deft and persuasive…Zakaria brings the reader swiftly and surely through the noble history of the liberal education ideal and describes with alarm how it is buckling under pressure from rising college tuition and students who are understandably concerned about acquiring marketable skills…his book is an accessible, necessary defense of an idea under siege.

The New York Times Book Review - Kevin Carey

"In Defense of a Liberal Education brilliantly and provocatively argues that the university is much more than a vocational school. The flight from the liberal arts is leaving us impoverished. Zakaria's book couldn't have come at a more valuable moment."

Malcolm Gladwell

"An accessible, necessary defense of an idea under siege."

New York Times Book Review

"Smart."

The New York Times - Nicholas Kristof

"In Defense of a Liberal Education brilliantly and provocatively argues that the university is much more than a vocational school. The flight from the liberal arts is leaving us impoverished. Zakaria's book couldn't have come at a more valuable moment."

Malcolm Gladwell

"Smart."

Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times

Narrating his own work, the CNN host and WASHINGTON POST columnist warns about the impending death of liberal arts education in the United States. Zakaria’s informative, direct message on the necessity of this type of education provides listeners with a personal connection to the topic as well as factual reports defending the liberal arts. The author’s tone is unafraid as he expresses great concern about the changes currently taking place in American education. An intellectual urgency comes across in his detailed account of coming to the United States from India and his discussion of American youth and how they respond to education. This listening experience is both thought provoking and bold. T.E.C. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

MAY 2015 - AudioFile

2015-03-01
Why Americans should continue to embrace a well-rounded education. After being accepted at Yale, Zakaria (The Post-American World: Release 2.0, 2011, etc.)—who emigrated from India, a country whose educational system is deeply rooted in the concept of learning a skill or trade rather than embracing a general education—had to decide on a course of study. Although fearful of what his Indian friends might think, he decided to major in history, a subject he was passionate about but one that was not necessarily considered useful. Zakaria implores all Americans to reconsider the idea of obtaining a liberal education, using solid evidence from Colonial days to the present to show that a liberal education is the ultimate element that separates the educational system of the United States from much of the rest of the world. America was founded on new ideas and people who didn't want to be locked into the European method of learning via specific training and/or apprenticeships. Zakaria's arguments are cohesive, and his accessible prose logically progresses as he builds his case for a type of education that opens doors that might otherwise never be discovered. "A good educational system must confront the realities of the world we live in and educate in a way that addresses them," he writes, "rather than pretend that these challenges don't exist." A liberal education gives one the tools to be able to learn anything, whether it is science-based, technology-based, or something altogether different. It emphasizes methods of writing and speaking one's thoughts through creative endeavors and the pursuit of interests that hold attention far beyond the classroom. Zakaria adroitly points out that thanks to the Internet and online classes, the opportunity to learn anything, just about anywhere in the world, is now available to the global population, so there's no reason not to take advantage. A passionate appeal, for Americans in particular and the world at large, to rethink the benefits of a well-rounded, general education.

Kirkus Reviews