"Rescuing Socrates is a warm, appealing narrative of how it feels to be ‘thrust into a conversation’ with fellow students about life’s most ‘serious and unsettling questions.’"-Martha Bayles, Wall Street Journal
"[A] combination memoir and call to arms. . . . Despite those who claim that these are merely works by dead, possibly irrelevant white men, Montás argues that the Great Books approach has a fundamentally democratizing impulse."-John McWhorter, New York Times
"Thanks to Montás . . . Socrates had a good 2021."-George F. Will, Washington Post
"[An] earnest defense of the humanities, which is also a personal testament to the power of a liberal education."-Thomas Chatterton Williams, The Atlantic
"One can only hope that Rescuing Socrates rescues others as well."-Naomi Schaefer Riley, Commentary
"Montás undertakes his defense of the great books with simplicity and humility. . . . In the face of public conversations marked by fear, anger, and hostility, Montás chooses the path of vulnerability. In that, he shows the wisdom of a person who has navigated real conflict, away from the seminar table."-Zena Hitz, Commonweal Magazine
"This is an important, and timely, book about why the western canon still matters and about how great books can change lives, especially impoverished black and brown ones."-Lindsay Johns, Times Literary Supplement
"A heartbreakingly honest immigrant tale of displacement, loss, wrenching readjustment and self-discovery, this book also offers a gripping account of how participation in the great conversation over justice, ethics, citizenship and the nature of the good life can subvert hierarchies of privilege, redeem lost souls, open minds and transform lives."-Steve Mintz, Inside Higher Ed
"Rescuing Socrates is a valuable and thoughtful book both sociologically and educationally, making a contribution to the ongoing debate over the past, present, and future of liberal-arts education in the United States."-M. D. Aeschliman, National Review
"[Montás] weaves a compelling personal narrative together with a forceful argument that reading classic texts, even those originating in predominantly white, Eurocentric cultures, is an important opportunity for underserved students of color to transform themselves and transform the inequitable social structures within which they are embedded"-Brian Rosenberg, Chronicle of Higher Education
"Montás returns the humanities to its revolutionary home, reminding us that we are, after all, talking about such radical and subversive thinkers as Augustine, Plato, Freud, and Gandhi. He teaches us, presumably like he teaches his Core Curriculum students, what those thinkers were after—and what reading them makes possible."-Jonathan Tran, Christian Century
10/01/2021
In this insightful work, Montás (American studies, Columbia Univ.; former director of Columbia's Center for the Core Curriculum) explores the enduring value of a "liberal education," a term of post-secondary education that refers to the core courses that students are often required to take, outside of specialized coursework in their discipline. As an undergraduate at Columbia, Montás encountered the college's Core Curriculum, sometimes called a Great Books curriculum, which refers to foundational texts by ancient and modern authors that address big questions faced by humankind. To help readers experience liberal education for themselves, Montás focuses on St. Augustine; Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; Sigmund Freud; and Mahatma Gandhi. He describes how these authors shaped his thinking and fostered a sense of belonging and offers a critical assessment of liberal education in contemporary academe. Few colleges and universities still require study of Great Books as part of their curricula, but Montás makes a compelling case for the life-changing results of such pedagogy; he notes how, as an émigré from the Dominican Republic, he benefited from the breadth and depth of these approaches. He argues that academia does "minority students an unconscionable disservice when we steer them away from the traditional liberal arts curriculum." VERDICT This thoughtful book will appeal to anyone involved in assessing, developing, and refining general education curricula.—Elizabeth Connor, Daniel Lib., The Citadel, Military Coll. of South Carolina, Charleston