"Timely . The Splintering of the American Mind examines the competing costs and benefits of the country's continuing shift away from a commonly accepted--albeit white--canon of shared narratives to an 'exploration and celebration of marginalized racial and sexual identities.' Egginton devotes a large section of the book to one of the most vexing problems of our time--rampant inequality of both economic and social capital--and demonstrates the complicated and sometimes inadvertent ways in which our winner-take-all higher education system exacerbates and locks this in." - New York Times Book Review "Provocative . Egginton's pot-stirring prose . will delight some readers and rile others, but his book will interest anyone wanting a better sense of the current mood surrounding American higher education." - Publishers Weekly "An eloquent and moving defense of higher education's contribution to the public good. Insisting that identity politics isn't the enemy of community, and democracy is still a revolutionary idea, he steps nimbly around either/or choices, pointing the way forward to a more truly equitable campus--and country.

" - Laura Kipnis, author of UNWANTED ADVANCES "An incisive and nuanced diagnosis of the ruptures in our society that so challenge higher education today. His call for a universal experience of the liberal arts as essential to democracy is as compelling as any I have seen." - Adam Falk, President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation "The Splintering of the American Mind challenges all those working in higher education to return to first principles. Egginton offers constructive criticism delivered with wit, learning, and a welcome glimpse at where the 'culture wars' of the 1980s and 90s wound up, even as his account points in helpful new directions." - Christopher S. Celenza, Ph.D.

, Dean of Georgetown College at Georgetown University "A compassionate clarion call for academia to help reconstruct a national community sundered by divisions of class, geography, and education. He provides a convincing blueprint for how educators can promote community through changes in curriculum, particularly through a re-emphasis on the humanities, and public policy." - David Goldfield, Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History and author of THE GIFTED GENERATION "A must-read book. For anyone concerned about the state of modern America and Higher Education's role in it, Egginton provides an artful and passionate plea for America to revive its public sphere, and to renew our collective sense of commonwealth. Challenging all viewpoints and taking no prisoners, there is a dynamic and arresting urgency to his prose." - Ben Vinson III, Dean, Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, George Washington University, and author of BEFORE MESTIZAJE.