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In Defense of a Liberal Education
Fareed Zakaria
W.W. Norton & Company
April 2015
On Sale: March 30, 2015
208 pages ISBN: 0393247686 EAN: 9780393247688 Kindle: B00RZXW0Z8 Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
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and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated within a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.
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