The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University
(Issues of Our Time Series)

Narrator Michael Prichard

Has American higher education become a dinosaur? Why do professors all tend to think alike? What
makes it so hard for colleges to decide which subjects should be required? Why do teachers and
scholars find it so difficult to transcend the limits of their disciplines? Why, in short, are
problems that should be easy for universities to solve so intractable? The answer, Louis Menand
argues, is that the institutional structure and the educational philosophy of higher education
have remained the same for one hundred years, while faculties and student bodies have radically
changed and technology has drastically transformed the way people produce and disseminate
knowledge.

At a time when competition to get into and succeed in college has never been more intense,
universities are providing a less-useful education. Sparking a long-overdue debate about the
future of American education, The Marketplace of Ideas examines what professors and students.and
all the rest of us.might be better off without, while assessing what it is worth saving in our
traditional university institutions.

Download File Size:130.17 MB

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