Jerry Herron argues that the vision of culture as an end in itself has been all too thoroughly fulfilled in the present state of humanities education, but only because the humanities have lost their social function. In this book, he attempts to provide a constructive alternative to the nostalgia and pessimism currently prevailing. In Herron's view, the humanities are not really irrelevant; it is that the intellectual and political conversation that they represent is only latent, rather than publicly manifest. The humanities can only be justified in a world of work and power by proving useful in that world. The academic humanities harbor a general intellectual conversation that could potentially be interesting and even useful to society at large. Herron recommends that universities undertake to promote a new cultural literacy. Based on a collaborative enterprise open to all, its focus is the effective sharing of information and experience.