How to Learn How to Think: What the Liberal Arts Are Good For, Anyway

What are the Liberal Arts good for, anyway? In How to Learn How to Think, Michael D.C. Drout answers this question and many others about the value of liberal education, guiding readers through the evolution of Liberal Arts from the ancient world to twenty-first-century higher education. Sharing insights from three decades of teaching English at a small liberal arts college, Professor Drout argues that the Liberal Arts are more valuable than ever because these "tools to rule" give students the ability to solve complex, messy problems—exactly the ones not easily addressed by current science and technology. Stories of student successes, and the professor's own mid-career experience of relying on his Liberal Arts training to enter new intellectual disciplines, demonstrate the practical rewards of learning how to think this way, and case studies of Beowulf, the great Chinese novel The Dream of the Red Chamber, and the emerging discipline of Lexomic computer-assisted analysis show how the Liberal Arts continue to contribute to the creation of our culture.