Social Radicalism and Liberal Education

Liberal education used to command wide political support. Radicals disagreed with conservatives on whether the best culture could be appreciated by everyone, and they disagreed, too, on whether the barriers to understanding it were mainly social and economic, but there was no dispute that any worthwhile education ought to hand on the best that has been thought and said. That consensus has vanished since the 1960s. The book examines why social radicals supported liberal education, why they have moved away from it, and what the implications are for the future of an intellectually stimulating and culturally literate education.

"An ideal of liberal education is one of the most valuable legacies of western culture. This work explores the unfortunate demise of this ideal among its most ardent twentieth century former supporters on the political left. However, Professor Paterson's eloquent defence of liberal education in this ground-breaking work is perhaps all the more timely given the wider assaults to which this ideal – and the respect for the wisdom of the past that it embodies – has been prone from a variety of contemporary cultural and political directions."
David Carr, Professor of Ethics and Education, Birmingham University