Fulminates against the American university’s abandonment of liberal arts education in favor of the postmodern left’s historicism and nihilism. The opening section blasts the contemporary student, circa 1985, and is forgettable. The meat of the book more usefully traces the passage from Weber and Nietzsche to Heidegger and thence, severely corrupted, to the postwar American faculty. The author contrasts classical understandings of the self, truth, and suchlike concepts with the studiously value-free conceptions of the moderns and postmoderns. The final section demonstrates how the Enlightenment university, established to safeguard academic freedom, has been transformed into a radically totalitarian institution. Erudite and interesting, if occasionally shrill.
University
22. Haskins, Rise of Universities (4 Dec 2015)
A collection of 3 lectures sketching the foundation of European universities in 12th-century Europe, reviewing the schools of Bologna and Paris, the professor, and the student. Asserts the Renaissance really began with this new institution (which lacked many modern trappings — buildings). Otherwise seems antiquarian.