Editor's Note: This article was originally published under the name "John David," the former pseudonym of NAS Communications & Research Associate David Acevedo. To learn more about why David no longer writes under this name, click here.
In a recent article for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, Dr. Robert Paquette provides an in-depth review of NAS’s most recent report, The Lost History of Western Civilization. Paquette is President of the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization and a former professor of history at Hamilton College, where he taught for 37 years.
Paquette’s eloquent review amply praises our report and its author, Stanley Kurtz. He correctly points out that Kurtz’s analysis centers on the “‘scholarly culprits’ responsible for what can only be described as a great betrayal of the ethos of liberal arts education,” figures that are often left out of the mainstream discussion. Paquette goes on to trace the trajectory of the report, a synopsis sure to whet the appetite of those interested in the subject.
As Paquette writes:
In losing the history of Western civilization, the powers that be ended up disarming themselves. To attract students, they no longer sell academic rigor, but a warm, mothering environment in which you will find individual happiness by developing your own course of study. The Socratic injunction to know thyself, however, easily slides into self-absorption in a universe of nescience and a world that has lost the history of Western civilization.
Read the full article here.
Image: Puk Patrick, Public Domain
