Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, by Roosevelt Montás (Princeton University Press, 248 pages, $24.95)
Roosevelt Montás was born very poor in a remote rural village in the Dominican Republic in 1973 and managed to immigrate with family members to the United States in 1985, living in impoverished circumstances and broken homes in New York City. He has now written a poignant and edifying book about how he emerged from such circumstances and ended up getting bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in English and comparative literature from Columbia University and becoming a key instructor and administrator in the famous Columbia undergraduate liberal-arts program generally known as the Core Curriculum, now a century in operation. 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.
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