Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future
by Neil Postman

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Book Reviews of Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future

Book Review: Essential reading for educators in history
Summary: 5 Stars

Summary of Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future

Chief among the values Postman cites is the development of the intellect; it plays a part in many of his recommendations, from the cultivation of a healthy skepticism towards overhyped technology to sweeping educational reforms that include replacing grammar instruction with logic and rhetoric and introducing courses on comparative religion and the history of science. He also lashes out at postmodernists who start with the premise that language "is a major factor in producing our perceptions, judgments, knowledge, and institutions" and conclude that language is therefore tenuously connected to reality at best. Enlightenment thinkers knew that language molded perception, he notes, but they also believed that "it is possible to use language to say things about the world that are true" and "to communicate ideas to oneself and to others." Postman is excessively curmudgeonly at times, as in his reference to philosopher Jean Baudrillard as "a Frenchman, of all things," or his remarks on the ancient Athenians: "I know they are the classic example of Dead White Males, but we should probably listen to them anyway." But for anybody with a stake in the culture wars, or who wants to apply the lessons of philosophy to the modern world, Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century will make for provocative reading.

Early Civilization Books

• History > Ancient
• World > 18th Century
• 20th Century
• General
• Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Sociology > General