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It is one thing to lament the financial pressures put on universities, quite another to face up to the poverty of resources for thinking about what universities should do when they purport to offer a liberal education. In Powers of the Mind, former University of Chicago dean Donald N. Levine enriches those resources by proposing fresh ways to think about liberal learning with ideas more suited to our times. 

He does so by defining basic values of modernity and then considering curricular principles pertinent to them. The principles he favors are powers of the mind—disciplines understood as fields of study defined not by subject matter but by their embodiment of distinct intellectual capacities. To illustrate, Levine draws on his own lifetime of teaching and educational leadership, while providing a marvelous summary of exemplary educational thinkers at the University of Chicago who continue to inspire.  Out of this vital tradition, Powers of the Mind constructs a paradigm for liberal arts today, inclusive of all perspectives and applicable to all settings in the modern world.

"What does it mean to be liberally educated in 21st-century America, and what is the role of liberal education in a democracy? . . . . Levine . . . focuses on defining a curricular structure for liberal education (rooted primarily in the evolution of undergraduate programs at Chicago, which he calls exemplary). . . . [It] will appeal to those with an interest in higher education. . . . Levine provides a historical analysis of the development of undergraduate education at Chicago and a proposal for a contemporary model of liberal learning. . . . [This book] will help create balance between conservative and liberal volleys in the 'culture wars' in higher education and will appeal to many readers."--Library Journal