Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation

by Roosevelt Montás

Overview

A Dominican-born academic tells the story of how the Great Books transformed his life—and why they have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds

What is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization. Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montás tells the story of how a liberal education transformed his life, and offers an intimate account of the relevance of the Great Books today, especially to members of historically marginalized communities.

Montás emigrated from the Dominican Republic to Queens, New York, when he was twelve and encountered the Western classics as an undergraduate in Columbia University’s renowned Core Curriculum, one of America’s last remaining Great Books programs. The experience changed his life and determined his career—he went on to earn a PhD in English and comparative literature, serve as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum, and start a Great Books program for low-income high school students who aspire to be the first in their families to attend college.

Weaving together memoir and literary reflection, Rescuing Socrates describes how four authors—Plato, Augustine, Freud, and Gandhi—had a profound impact on Montás’s life. In doing so, the book drives home what it’s like to experience a liberal education—and why it can still remake lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691200392
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	11/16/2021
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	539,157
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Roosevelt Montás is senior lecturer at Columbia University’s Center for American Studies and director of its Freedom and Citizenship Program, which introduces low-income high school students to the Western political tradition through the study of foundational texts. From 2008 to 2018, he was director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum. He lives in New York City. Twitter @rooseveltmontas

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This moving book is both a cry from the heart and a battle cry. It is the most convincing case yet made for liberal education as a gift to young people and indispensable for democracy. If every president, trustee, dean, and professor (of any subject) were to read it—really read it—hope and purpose would be restored to our colleges and universities and to all the students they serve.”—Andrew Delbanco, president of the Teagle Foundation and author of College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be

“In Rescuing Socrates, Roosevelt Montás tells his story of moving as a lost, lonely twelve-year-old from the Dominican Republic to New York, then eventually finding himself by studying Aristotle, Augustine, Plato, and many others in the Core Curriculum at Columbia University. Montás takes the reader on an inspiring journey where we come to realize how the power of these texts helped a young immigrant and man of color recreate his heritage and a sense of identity in a foreign land.”—Anika T. Prather, founder of The Living Water School

“This is a powerful and deeply personal defense of Great Books and liberal education. Montás has written a rousing reminder that a Great Books education is not a frivolous indulgence or a weapon in the culture wars, but a gateway to clearer thinking, meaningful human relationships, and life’s most important questions.”—Molly Worthen, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"Roosevelt Montás has written an absorbing and perceptive book about how he, an immigrant from a rural town in the Dominican Republic, came to New York and was engaged and transformed by reading great books. His vibrant account is an autobiography of learning. It should be read by anyone interested in reading and big ideas."—Mitchell Cohen, author of The Politics of Opera: A History from Monteverdi to Mozart

“In this beautifully written book, Roosevelt Montás presents a compelling case for the immeasurably transformative value of a true liberal education. Through his personal story and a poetic journey of the works of four great thinkers, Montás illuminates how a liberal education is essential to engaging with the most fundamental aspects of human freedom and self-determination. Rescuing Socrates is a touching, insightful invitation to rethink the reigning model of education in favor of one that equips us to live examined lives.”—Amna Khalid, Carleton College

Editorial Reviews

10/01/2021

In this insightful work, Montás (American studies, Columbia Univ.; former director of Columbia's Center for the Core Curriculum) explores the enduring value of a "liberal education," a term of post-secondary education that refers to the core courses that students are often required to take, outside of specialized coursework in their discipline. As an undergraduate at Columbia, Montás encountered the college's Core Curriculum, sometimes called a Great Books curriculum, which refers to foundational texts by ancient and modern authors that address big questions faced by humankind. To help readers experience liberal education for themselves, Montás focuses on St. Augustine; Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; Sigmund Freud; and Mahatma Gandhi. He describes how these authors shaped his thinking and fostered a sense of belonging and offers a critical assessment of liberal education in contemporary academe. Few colleges and universities still require study of Great Books as part of their curricula, but Montás makes a compelling case for the life-changing results of such pedagogy; he notes how, as an émigré from the Dominican Republic, he benefited from the breadth and depth of these approaches. He argues that academia does "minority students an unconscionable disservice when we steer them away from the traditional liberal arts curriculum." VERDICT This thoughtful book will appeal to anyone involved in assessing, developing, and refining general education curricula.—Elizabeth Connor, Daniel Lib., The Citadel, Military Coll. of South Carolina, Charleston

Library Journal

"Rescuing Socrates is a warm, appealing narrative of how it feels to be ‘thrust into a conversation’ with fellow students about life’s most ‘serious and unsettling questions.’"—-Martha Bayles, Wall Street Journal

"[A] combination memoir and call to arms. . . . Despite those who claim that these are merely works by dead, possibly irrelevant white men, Montás argues that the Great Books approach has a fundamentally democratizing impulse."—-John McWhorter, New York Times

"Thanks to Montás . . . Socrates had a good 2021."—-George F. Will, Washington Post

"[An] earnest defense of the humanities, which is also a personal testament to the power of a liberal education."—-Thomas Chatterton Williams, The Atlantic

"One can only hope that Rescuing Socrates rescues others as well."—-Naomi Schaefer Riley, Commentary

"Montás undertakes his defense of the great books with simplicity and humility. . . . In the face of public conversations marked by fear, anger, and hostility, Montás chooses the path of vulnerability. In that, he shows the wisdom of a person who has navigated real conflict, away from the seminar table."—-Zena Hitz, Commonweal Magazine

"This is an important, and timely, book about why the western canon still matters and about how great books can change lives, especially impoverished black and brown ones."—-Lindsay Johns, Times Literary Supplement

"A heartbreakingly honest immigrant tale of displacement, loss, wrenching readjustment and self-discovery, this book also offers a gripping account of how participation in the great conversation over justice, ethics, citizenship and the nature of the good life can subvert hierarchies of privilege, redeem lost souls, open minds and transform lives."—-Steve Mintz, Inside Higher Ed

"Rescuing Socrates is a valuable and thoughtful book both sociologically and educationally, making a contribution to the ongoing debate over the past, present, and future of liberal-arts education in the United States."—-M. D. Aeschliman, National Review

"[Montás] weaves a compelling personal narrative together with a forceful argument that reading classic texts, even those originating in predominantly white, Eurocentric cultures, is an important opportunity for underserved students of color to transform themselves and transform the inequitable social structures within which they are embedded"—-Brian Rosenberg, Chronicle of Higher Education

"Montás returns the humanities to its revolutionary home, reminding us that we are, after all, talking about such radical and subversive thinkers as Augustine, Plato, Freud, and Gandhi. He teaches us, presumably like he teaches his Core Curriculum students, what those thinkers were after—and what reading them makes possible."—-Jonathan Tran, Christian Century ​

From the Publisher