Abstract
In this intriguing and sometimes frustrating book, Kurt Spellmeyer argues that “the humanities must change” (3), that they have become “isolated from the life of the larger society” (4) and instead need “to offer people freedom, and beyond that, to express real solidarity with the inner life of ordinary citizens” (223). His argument has many intriguing facets: it rejects the trickle-down vision of culture; it questions the value of Professionalization of academic disciplines; it excoriates the “prepackaged analytical systems”