Liberal Education and Democracy addresses three vital arguments for liberal education and its integral relationship to democracy. Liberal education is currently under attack as both politically subversive and economically impractical. In Liberal Education and Democracy , Bob Pepperman Taylor evaluates both the defenses that have been offered for liberal education and the complex relationship between liberal education and democracy. He offers a compelling case for maintaining a strong commitment to this form of education as an essential good for all citizens. His three primary arguments for liberal education are that it prepares students to be useful contributors to the economy, that it prepares citizens to be thoughtful and responsible, and that it can stimulate students to experience the delight of intellectual exploration and understanding. Taylor moves through each of these arguments and concludes that the seemingly least practical of them may in fact be the most powerful. He gives an insightful glimpse into the current democratic climate and through thorough examination argues that democracies need liberal education as much as liberal learning requires the freedom of democratic societies. “Bob Pepperman Taylor provides a thoughtful commentary that is timely and provocative as American higher education faces reconsideration, including external pressures to explain and even justify its missions and offerings within the framework of American society, economics, and political systems of belief and action.” ―John R. Thelin, author of A History of American Higher Education “At a time when liberal education has been subject to critique both from within and outside the academy, this book is a serious and careful defense of the merits of teaching and studying the liberal arts.” ―Susan McWilliams Barndt, author of The American Road Trip and American Political Thought "[Taylor] provides a clearly written, well-balanced, and thoughtful treatment of the subject. Recommended for students, teachers, general readers, academic administrators, and above all, those who seek to play an active political role in reforming higher education." ― Choice Bob Pepperman Taylor is the Elliott A. Brown Green and Gold Professor of Law, Politics, and Political Behavior at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Lessons from Walden , which was named the winner of the American Political Science Association section award for the best book of 2020 in American political thought. For both political and economic reasons, then, liberal education in general, and the humanities in particular, have drawn a great deal of criticism in recent years. My hope is to say something meaningful in their defense. In so doing, I also hope to avoid both exaggeration and polemic, which are vices common, even ubiquitous, in so many discussions of education today. Those searching for ammunition with which to engage the contemporary culture wars will likely find what follows disappointing. My intention is to take at least half a step back from these conflicts and reflect on what I take to be the fundamental commitments of liberal learning. Such reflection, I believe, is essential if liberal learning is to survive the political turmoil of our times. What follows is an attempt to develop honest answers to questions about what we mean by, and might hope for from, a liberal education – both as individuals and as a society. That’s it. I don’t intend to argue about how we can afford liberal education, how to promote or market it, how to administratively organize higher education to do more of it, or any of these or related practical matters. There are excellent books (from which I have greatly benefited) on such problems, and on many more of the array of issues facing higher education, such as the corporatization of the academy and the growth of non-academic elements in universities. It will come as no surprise that I have opinions about these matters, and I will occasionally allow these opinions to be obvious to the reader (yes, I do believe a strong liberal education is a public good as well as a private right deserved by every citizen; no, I do not think it is honest or even necessary to emphasize only or even primarily the vocational payoffs of such an education when promoting it). Most importantly, however, my concern is prior to the practical; it is to understand the normative claims of liberal education as best I can. If I am right about the value of this form of education, and the benefits of its complex, difficult, and necessary relationship to liberal democracy, then working out the practical matters (such as making it available to all students, and not only the sons and daughters of the affluent) becomes much more compelling and worthwhile. Until we are confident about the experiences and values promoted by liberal learning, we will be equivocal in answering the attacks liberal colleges and universities are currently enduring. Until we are