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Rescuing Socrates
Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation | Roosevelt Montįs
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A Dominican-born academic tells the story of how the Great Books transformed his life—and why they have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds What is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization. Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montįs tells the story of how a liberal education transformed his life, and offers an intimate account of the relevance of the Great Books today, especially to members of historically marginalized communities. Montįs emigrated from the Dominican Republic to Queens, New York, when he was twelve and encountered the Western classics as an undergraduate in Columbia University’s renowned Core Curriculum, one of America’s last remaining Great Books programs. The experience changed his life and determined his career—he went on to earn a PhD in English and comparative literature, serve as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum, and start a Great Books program for low-income high school students who aspire to be the first in their families to attend college. Weaving together memoir and literary reflection, Rescuing Socrates describes how four authors—Plato, Augustine, Freud, and Gandhi—had a profound impact on Montįs’s life. In doing so, the book drives home what it’s like to experience a liberal education—and why it can still remake lives.
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Part memoir, part call to action, Montás is on a mission to keep the classics in the core curriculum at colleges and universities. He made an excellent argument based on his life as an immigrant who made it to an English PhD at Columbia University. He wrote about what an impression their undergrad required classics made on him as a student and later as an instructor. Throughout he weaves reflections on philosophers.

Last book of 2021. I read 520!

Addison_Reads 520! That's awesome. I was hoping for 500, but ended at 400. 3y
Megabooks @Addison_Reads thanks! 400 is fantastic! 3y
RamsFan1963 @Megabooks How?!?! HOW do you read 520 books a year? That's like 10 a week. 3y
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Megabooks @RamsFan1963 always have an audiobook in my ear! 3y
MemoirsForMe Holy Guacamole! That must be a world record! Way to go! šŸŽ‰šŸ™ŒšŸ»šŸ‘šŸ»šŸ‘šŸ» 3y
Cinfhen 520 šŸ™ŒšŸ»Fantastic šŸ„³šŸ„³šŸ„³and book sounds good!!! 3y
Megabooks @UwannaPublishme thanks very much!! šŸ˜šŸ˜ 3y
Megabooks @Cinfhen thanks!! šŸ„°šŸ˜˜ I‘m not sure I was the intended audience, but I enjoyed it and learned a lot. 3y
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