SLACKING: A Guide to Ivy League Miseducation By Adam Kissel, et al

SLACKING

A Guide to Ivy League Miseducation

By Adam Kissel

Prestige no longer ensures substance at Ivy League schools; students must navigate a maze of shallow, politicized courses to uncover the rare gems of a classical education, exposing the need for academic renewal.

With all the news about the Trump administration defunding Ivy League schools like Harvard and Columbia, visiting fellow for higher education reform at The Heritage Foundation Adam Kissel and other scholars have released a new book, SLACKING: A Guide to Ivy League Miseducation, which proves that Ivy League universities can no longer be trusted to produce well-educated students. Even a cursory review of the course titles at top schools shows that these $320,000-plus diplomas may confer legacy prestige to graduates, but not necessarily knowledge or wisdom. 

At Cornell, for example, students can take "courses" such as Queer Girlhood, Beyoncé Nation, and Intersectional Disability Studies. The course list at Yale includes Pop Sapphism and Comparative Settler Geographies. At Princeton, a course entirely on shoes. Penn offers Reality TV and Gender and also Decolonizing French Food. What's so tragic about these offerings is that these courses actually fulfill general education requirements. 

In SLACKING, you'll learn:

·    Ivy League colleges can no longer be trusted to produce well-educated students.

·    The core courses in the general education curriculum are often biased, woke, narrow, frivolous, question-begging, or self-indulgent.

·    The question a generation ago was, "Do colleges still require Shakespeare, American history, and Western Civ?" Today, the question is whether they offer any good courses in these areas. (The answer: barely.)

·    The problem is almost all in the humanities and social sciences, not STEM ... but there's one big exception at Cornell.

·    The worst "slacker" courses all meet general education requirements, producing miseducation at the core of a bachelor's degree.

·    A great education is still possible in the Ivies if you know what to look for. Start with recognizable authors other than Karl Marx and consider whether the course offers "the best that has been thought and said in the world."

In SLACKING, Adam Kissel and his colleagues offer a solution. In this valuable book, they dedicate one chapter to each Ivy League college, providing specific information about the coursework that serious students should pursue to extract a real education from these decaying institutions. Every chapter concludes with two course lists, both of which meet the school's general education requirements. One displays the worst collection of courses that an inveterate "slacker" could take to skate through the requirements for entertainment, reinforcement of political biases, and narrow specialization. The other lists the best choice of courses a dedicated striver could take to acquire a well-rounded, content-rich liberal education. The contrast between the two sounds a rousing alarm bell for curriculum reform at America's best-known colleges.

SLACKING proves that it is still possible to earn a great education at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, or Dartmouth, but doing so requires prudence and persistence. 

"This book is a banquet of the absurdities that Ivy League universities serve up to their students under the rubric of general education. Anyone who wonders how the graduates of America’s elite institutions come by their jaundiced view of our country should start here. The few who refuse to 'slack' are limited to the hard sciences and the few remaining excellent courses in the humanities." --Peter Wood, President, National Association of Scholars

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Kissel is a visiting fellow for higher education reform in the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation. He is a board member of the University of West Florida, Southern Wesleyan University, and the National Association of Scholars. He also serves on the America 250 Advisory Council on Civics, History, and America's Future. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard, he served in the first Trump administration as deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs.

The Political and Strategic History of the World, Vol II By Lord Conrad Black

 

The Political and Strategic History of the World, Vol II:

From the Caesars to the Peace of Westphalia and Louis XIV, A.D. 14-1661

By Lord Conrad Black

In this sweeping second volume of the series, The Political and Strategic History of the World, Volume II: From the Caesars to the Peace of Westphalia and Louis XIV, A.D. 14-1661, Lord Conrad Black covers the height and long decline of the Roman Empire, the barbaric invasions, the rise of Christianity, the Holy Roman Empire and Byzantium, the Mongol and Islamic invasions, the slow rise of the nation states of Europe and the history of the early Church through the Reformation to the end of the Thirty Years' War and the accession of Louis XIV.

Contrary to the modern proclivity to view history as a coalition of forces working upon passive human society, viewing individual human beings as helpless cogs in the machine, Lord Black insists that history is shaped by very human ambitions and motivations – Churchill's "fine agate points" on which history turns – individual human decisions made in specific times and places. These are especially illuminated by Black's learned assessments of the accomplishments of the many and varied emperors, kings, and queens appearing throughout this volume and in which Lord Black often differs markedly with other historians, most notably Edward Gibbon on the role of Christianity in the late Roman Empire.

In The Political and Strategic History of the World, Vol. II, you'll learn about:

• The role of Christianity in the fall of the Western Roman Empire - I disagree with Gibbon;
• The extent to which Islam is an imitation of Christianity;
• The extent to which Christian influence was a moderating or civilizing one in the early and later Middle Ages;
• The reasons why France and England were the leading early countries;
• The reasons for the comparative vulnerability of Spain and the late unification of Germany and Italy;
• The different ways the Reformation was handled in the main European countries; and
• The reasons why Elizabeth I was instrumental in developing the British state and Richelieu in developing the modern state for all countries.

A delight to read, this is history for the history lover and is also a mighty reference work to be returned to again and again. A must have for all home libraries to pass down to future generations that they may contemplate the doings of their ancestors, draw strength from their courage and tenacity, and revive hope in the certain knowledge that human society continues to progress despite the hardship and setbacks which often accompany it.

Lord Black's ambitious work is presented with elegance and erudition.

--Dr. Henry Kissinger

Our modern Gibbon, Conrad Black takes the reader from the height of the Roman Empire to the end of the Medieval period with erudition, humour, insight and immense readability. In the course of the gripping story, he stumbles upon the hugely uplifting (and surprisingly Whiggish) fact that Mankind's ability to govern itself is improving, albeit in fits and starts.

--Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny 

Comprehensive world histories often require collaborative teams of scholarly specialists. Contemporary academic historians naturally assume that there can no longer be any Gibbons, Grotes, Mommsens, Bancrofts, or Prescotts still to be found. Conrad Black, however, is a rare historian who has undertaken a narrative, multivolume history of world civilization, and thereby restored the value of that grand classical tradition. This task, of course, demands prodigious research of primary and secondary sources, facility in a number of languages, and a lifetime of wide reading and publication. Such a monumental work is impossible without a fertile imagination, common and good sense, scholarly rigor, a masterful prose style, and unrivaled discipline. In all these areas Black excels. The result is a landmark work of universal history that will capture the public imagination while earning the respect and admiration of scholars for many decades to come.

--Victor Davis Hanson, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lord Conrad Black is a Canadian-born British peer, and former publisher of The London Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Jerusalem Post, and founder of Canada's National Post. Historian, biographer, columnist, and best-selling author, he is a regular contributor to numerous publications, podcasts, radio, and television in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Lord Black has published comprehensive histories of both Canada and the United States, as well as authoritative biographies of presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard M. Nixon, and Donald J. Trump.  He is a dual-citizen (Canada and the U.K.) and was named a member of the British House of Lords as Lord Black of Crossharbour in 2001.

Turnaround: America's Revival By Senator James Lankford

TURNAROUND: AMERICA'S REVIVAL

By SENATOR JAMES LANKFORD

 "To turn around our country we are tempted to spend our energy fighting darkness, but you can’t turn down darkness, you can only turn up light. In a dark room, you look for the light switch, not the dark switch. For some reason, that simple truth seems to escape us when we think about people and problems. If you want less darkness, turn up more light." --Senator James Lankford

Americans live in the greatest representative republic in the history of the planet which is defined each day by "We the People." Every day the nation is US.

When we look in our national mirror, if we don’t like what we see, we should do what it takes to improve our reflection.

Senator James Lankford's new book, TURNAROUND: America's Revival is a journey book, filled with ancient truths, our modern division, personal faith, true stories, a case study on immigration politics, and a lesson about the bees that will kill you.

The pages are a celebration of our freedom and a challenge to reconnect to our faith and do something significant with our lives. The stories are deeply personal and practical.

TURNAROUND challenges us to step up and do something when we see the nation is drifting. We should not just allow cultural gravity to win. Each of us get the choice every day to do the right thing, the right way.

Let's pray and get to work on our national turnaround. 

"A powerful challenge to pay more attention to who we are, rather than just what we do. James’ practical leadership ideas will encourage you to live your faith and find impactful ways to serve our community and our great nation. Every chapter is packed with history, humor, and inspiration to be part of our national turnaround."

--Fmr. SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO 

"The best sermons are seen, not just heard. Senator James Lankford lives his faith with humility, grace, collegiality, and authenticity. In this book he adroitly puts his finger precisely on the key to change and revival in our country. The key is US. This book is both a challenge and a chance for us to reflect and act."

--Fmr. CONGRESSMAN TREY GOWDY

ABUOT THE AUTHOR: Senator James Lankford is a U.S. Senator for the remarkable people of Oklahoma. James is a passionate and proud conservative who serves in multiple key roles in Congress for national security and economic opportunity. He is driven by his faith in Jesus, a love for his family, and his hope for our nation. He has appeared on every major network and in most major publications (and a few you have never heard of). Whether media outlets agree or disagree, James is committed to challenging all of us to live our values and planting truth in the rich soil of our nation’s heritage to watch it grow.

Visit the author at https://jameslankford.com/

Learn more about Senator Lankford at https://www.lankford.senate.gov/

Antisemitism: History and Myth By Robert Spencer

Antisemitism: History and Myth

Why the Ancient Evil of Antisemitism Has Returned and How to Counter It

By Robert Spencer

"Had we listened to Robert Spencer and taken heed twenty years ago or even ten years ago, the impact of the Islamists driven antisemitism would not have caught us by surprise. We would have had in place an institutional effort to counter it. Here is another opportunity to pay attention to his important work. Read this book!" –Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The Hamas attack upon Israel on October 7, 2023, was one of the most inhuman jihad attacks ever and reminiscent of the darkest days of National Socialist Germany. The attackers gloried in their savagery and vied to outdo one another in cruelty. Yet despite - or perhaps because of - its brutality, that attack unleashed expressions of hatred for Jews that shocked those who assumed such hate was a thing of the past. Bestselling author Robert Spencer has written perhaps the most important book on the return of an ancient evil - antisemitism - and how it came to be: Antisemitism: History and Myth.

After October 7, global public opinion turned sharply against Israel. One campus protester carried a sign calling for a "Final Solution." Another published a video saying, "Be glad - be grateful - that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists." Synagogues all over the U.S. received bomb threats. Jews in Europe and the U.S. were attacked. October 7 also led to a large-scale reappearance of claims about the Jews' secret power and malevolence. Claims that Jews are enemies of all that is good have become mainstream as they have not been since Hitler put a bullet in his brain.

In Robert Spencer's book, Antisemitism: History & Myth, you'll learn that:

·    Antisemitism historically comes from four sources: Christianity, Islam, National Socialism (Nazism) and International Socialism (Communism). All four are increasing today.

·    The root cause of antisemitism is the refusal of Jews to assimilate and melt into the larger community. Many of those larger communities then demonize them as the outsider that is to blame for all evils.

·    Today's antisemites claim simply to be foes of Israel, but it's clear that there is nothing Israel could ever do that they would support.

·    Antisemitism today, in its claim that the Jews are running things secretly and with malevolent intent, is a massive deflection and distraction from the genuine threat of Islamic jihad and other real threats.

·    Antisemitism leads to genocide. This doesn't mean that Jews and Israel should be above criticism, but that the wild claims must be confronted and fought, as they lead to genuine destruction.

The record needs to be set straight for anyone who is willing to see the truth. Historian Robert Spencer does just that in Antisemitism: History & Myth. He reveals the sources of today's Jew-hatred in pre-Christian paganism, Christianity, Islam, and national and international socialism, and rebuts the most common claims against Jews.

Hatred of Jews is a persistent and recurring social contagion that is now cresting again, after people of goodwill around the world thought that it had been definitely laid to rest in the ashes of National Socialist Germany in 1945. The resurgence of antisemitism should worry everyone, Jewish and non-Jewish, who is concerned about the recurrence of one of the darkest chapters in human history. The world today is on the brink of returning to such barbarism. Antisemitism: History & Myth is an attempt to keep that from happening.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-nine books, including the bestsellers The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process and The History of Jihad from Muhammad to ISIS. A historian, researcher, and counterterror analyst, Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the U.S. Central Command, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community.