Nussbaum's book will continue to be important in an age where politicians and opinionated citizens view our nation's high schools as trade schools and our colleges as trade school 2.0. Her arguments address a society in which businesses are not seen as responsible for developing their own talent from a pool of educated workers with an ability to learn, or to mentor that talent. She also addresses a college system that has pitted economic development against a well-rounded education, one in which colleges on the defensive feel the need to justify their contribution in terms of units of production. The development has been one that can be described as laziness in that describing value in terms of quantity is much easier that standards that reflect quality. Nussbaum makes a strong argument that we stand to lose a lot by continuing down this path - such as informed citizens who have the imagination to ask questions that improve the lives of citizens, and as a result the conditions of workers and what those workers make. If there's any criticism, perhaps more could be written that does not assume that an educated population is a good in itself -- since so many politicians and industry lobbyists have tried to detract from that idea. She makes valid points on the partisans who might benefit from having a robotic workforce that doesn't ask questions. There are many in the middle though, as the result of busy lives, who would benefit from seeing what they have to lose. ( )

Meh. I mostly agree with what she says, but I found the book unexciting and pointless. Sure the humanities are important, sure they should be emphasized more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ( )

Chapter 3 was first-rate! And she has some great points. And I may be a bit biased.

However, I was confused on her constant references to India and Tagore. It seemed, until the afterword that the U. S. was in a quandary and Tagore had the answer but then I realized that Tagore's school wasn't doing too well either so using it as the ideal didn't seem to work for me. ( )

A reformist protest against the dystopian future of education portended by the increasing emphasis on "practical" results at all levels. Reads like a column in the New York Times. It draws heavily on the educational philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore, in addition to Rousseau, Dewey, and others. ( )

It's pathetic that we live in a society that so little values the humanities that scholars like Nussbaum feel compelled to defend them. Nussbaum's defense of the value of the humanities is informed, intelligent, thoughtful, and obvious. She could have summed up her arguments in a lengthy essay rather than a book but the points she repeats are worth repeating. ( )