Tom Nichols’ The Death of Expertise is a broad look at the antipathy toward “experts” and “expertise” among the citizenry of contemporary United States. Nichols contends that this antipathy is dangerous for our democracy, that this distrust not only makes for unhealthy conversation but damages both political and public relationships with the very experts’ guidance.
We discuss the argument, the nature of expertise, the role of the academic in civic education, and the state of civics in general. Find out if we liked this book and who we think should read it. If you haven’t read it yet, spoiler alert – we do assume you’ve read it!
Featuring Richard Green (@keynesianr), Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi), Pamela Clouser McCann, Anthony Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando), and Jan Perry (@JanPerry)
Follow us on Twitter! @BedrosianCenter
Special thanks to Oxford University Press for review copies.
To listen to the Bedrosian Book Club discussion of The Death of Expertise click the orange arrow in the Soundcloud player on this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through ApplePodcasts, Soundcloud, or Google Play
Links & further reading:
Why the Scariest Nuclear Threat May be Coming from Inside the White House by Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair
Obamacare repeal: Watch McCain vote no
The Ethics of Governing, Our American Discourse interview with Lisa Schweitzer
The Tyranny of the Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America by Lani Guinier
FiveThirtyEight
Our American Discourse – podcast
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Death of Expertise, article in The Federalist
Next Month … 
This podcast was produced by Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz, recorded and mixed by Corey Hedden.