The intellectual is an endangered species. In place of such people as Bertrand Russell, Raymond Williams and Hannah Arendt, people with genuine learning, breadth of vision, and a concern for public issues, we now have only facile pundits and spin doctors. In the age of the knowledge economy, we have somehow managed to combine the widest ever paticipation in higher education with the most dumbed down of cultures.

In this urgent and passionate book, Frank Furedi explains the essential contribution of intellectuals both to culture and to democracy, and why we need to recreate a public sphere in which intellectuals and the general public can talk to each other again.

‘The strength of this book lies in Furedi’s ability to make new connections and to use on social phenomenon to cast light on another.’

Roger Scruton

‘This vitally important book…packs a remarkable amount (politics, science, culture, education, post-modernism) into its 150-odd pages and, true to its enlightenment loyalties, couches an explosive argument in admirably temperate terms.’ Terry Eagleton