Review of Louis Menand\u27s The Marketplace of Ideas

Louis Menand. The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University. New York: Norton, 2010. 174 p. ISBN 9780393339161. $14.95. Louis Menand looks at four crucial questions for the future of higher education in our country: “Why is it so hard to institute a general education curriculum? Why did the humanities disciplines undergo a crisis of legitimation? Why has interdisciplinary become a magic word? And why do professors all tend to have the same politics?” All four come together to show why our once heralded system of colleges and universities presently finds itself at a crossroads. While not addressed specifically by Menand, SCUs will especially feel the push to determine their role and how they will continue to fill their mission of low-cost, high quality, general education