Review: In Defense of a Liberal Education

Fareed Zakaria. In Defense of a Liberal Education. W. W. Norton & Company, NY. 2015. 

At a time when many question the value of education beyond high school. Zakaria offers an inspiring and informative defense of college or university education that is broad based. The true value of Liberal Education is that it teaches you to write more clearly, speak well in the sense of giving more precise verbal explanations and presentations, and teaches you how to learn.  Liberal education teaches the curious how to use that curiosity productively.

Zakaria's background helps the reader understand the value of western liberal education. He was born and raised in India. He completed High School in India before entering Yale for College. In India as well as many other parts of the world, education focuses on memorization and test taking. Innovative thinking is discouraged. When he Zakaria entered Yale, he experienced first hand the benefit of learning to think for himself and to develop his innate intellectual curiosity. 

The word "liberal" has several meanings in English. When attached to the word education, it originally meant "of or pertaining to free men." Liberal Education was for those who will be attorneys, clerks, clergy, rulers, etc. In other words, people who will govern and need to solve complicated problems in order to prosper. 

The whole book was helpful to me to think about the value of western Liberal Education.  The chapter I enjoyed the most was the second chapter "A Brief History of Liberal Education." There has never been a settled, single, definition of what Liberal Education is or ought to be. There was a difference of opinion between Plato and Isocrates about the purpose of education. 

In the text of chapter two, Zakaria cites two sources that helped him understand the origins and the centuries long debates about Liberal Education. Bruce Kimball, Orators and Philosophers; and, Andrew Delbanco, College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be. In the endnotes he provides other sources. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The next time I have a conversation with someone about the value of Liberal Education, I will be sharing this book and its contents with him. Zakaria is an excellent communicator. 

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