Aristocracy of Everyone - Hardcover

Barber, Benjamin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345370406 ISBN 13: 9780345370402

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1992

Synopsis

In this brilliant, controversial, and profoundly original book, Benjamin R. Barber fundamentally alters the terms of the current debate over the value of opportunity in American education, politics, and culture.
Barber argues that the fashionable rallying cries of cultural literacy and political correctness completely miss the point of what is wrong with our society. While we fret about "the closing of the American mind" we utterly ignore the closing of American schools. While we worry about Japanese technology, we fail to tap the more fundamental ideological resources on which our country was founded. As Barber argues, the future of America lies not in competition but in education. Education in America can and must embrace both democracy and excellence.
Barber demonstrates persuasively that our national story has always comprised an intermingling of diverse, contradictory, often subversive voices. Multiculturalism has, from the very start, defined America. From his gripping portrait of America poised on the brink of unprecedented change, Barber offers a daringly original program for effecting change: for teaching democracy depends not only on the preeminence of education but on a resurgence of true community service.
A ringing challenge to the complacency, cynicism, and muddled thinking of our time that will change the way you feel about being an American citizen.

About this title

From the Back Cover

In this timely, witty, and readable account, Barber emphatically shows that education must emphasize democracy as much as it does the pursuit of excellence. With such an education, young Americans will gain nothing less than an apprenticeship in liberty-one grounded in a renewed commitment to community service-an idea that Barber put into practice at Rutgers University, and one which President Clinton has embraced as the key to a revitalized America.

About the Author

Benjamin R. Barber is Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society and the Wilson H. Elkins Professor at The Maryland School of Public Affairs at University of Maryland. He is also the author of Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (1984) and The Conquest of Politics (1988).

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0345370406
• ISBN 13: 9780345370402
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 307