Defining the Humanities

"Think of this as 'The Thinking Man's Bloom' or 'The Thinking Woman's Closing of the American Mind.' It takes up debates about education and reasons about them, where Bloom often only blasted away. . . . This is one of the more helpful recent statements of the case for the classics, accompanied by rather venturesome curricular suggestions." —Christian Century

"His exciting readable book calls for a return to a study of the classics—and of the Renaissance poets and scholars, like Petrarch, who rediscovered the classics." —Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World

" . . . a splendid statement bringing together in a careful and coherent way the prospects for a solid humanities curriculum." —Ernest L. Boyer

Ten years ago when this book was first published it was called Education's Great Amnesia: Reconsidering the Humanities from Petrarch to Freud. It is being reissued now in a second edition with a different title for a new generation of readers who cannot have forgotten what they never knew. What are the humanities? Can we agree on a core curriculum of humanistic studies? Robert Proctor answers these questions in a provocative, readable book.