Synopsis
The Higher Learning In America (English Edition) by Thorstein Veblen is a sharp, influential examination of the modern university and the forces that shape it. With clarity and biting wit, Veblen investigates how institutions of higher education are organized, funded, and governed, and how these pressures can redirect academic life away from genuine intellectual inquiry.
Written with Veblen’s signature analytical rigor, this classic work explores the tension between scholarship and administration, asking what happens when the ideals of learning are measured against the demands of prestige, bureaucracy, and public image. Rather than treating the university as a neutral space, Veblen portrays it as a social institution—one that reflects broader economic and cultural habits, and one that can be pulled toward “business” priorities at the expense of independent thought.
Still widely discussed for its relevance to contemporary debates, The Higher Learning In America remains essential reading for anyone interested in the purpose of higher education, the responsibilities of academic leadership, and the conditions that allow research and teaching to flourish. Whether you are a student, educator, or curious reader, Veblen’s critique offers a compelling lens through which to reconsider what universities are—and what they should be.
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From the Back Cover
At the time of its initial publication in 1904, The Higher Learning in America was known in educated circles as the most reflective study ever made of the university system in America.
Veblen's evaluation of the misleading notions and erroneous beliefs were inherent in "the higher learning" was received as fair by most academics. As a result, many believed he paved the way to an improved age in college education.
Just as applicable today as they were decades ago, his sophisticated style remains deprecatingly amusing; his biting critique just as disquieting as it was at the turn of the 19th century.
The Higher Learning in America remains a penetrating book by one of America's greatest social critics.
About the Author
One of the most influential social scientists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) wrote numerous books, including The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions and The Instinct of Workmanship: And the State of the Industrial Arts. Richard F. Teichgraeber III is a professor of history at Tulane University. He is the author of Building Culture: Studies in the Intellectual History of Industrializing America, 1867–1910 and Sublime Thoughts/Penny Wisdom: Situating Emerson and Thoreau in the American Market.
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