New Books Network

Today I’m speaking with economist Bryan Caplan about education and bullshit, with a particular focus on his book, The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money (Princeton University Press, 2018).

In our modern economy, possessing a college degree feels like a necessity for professional advancement. The age of good jobs for college dropouts is largely gone as more people spend more time in the classroom, writing papers, taking tests, and, of course, goofing off. On the one hand, policymakers celebrate the additional degrees attained by more people. Surely a more educated society means a more intelligent and productive one. It’s no secret that college grads make more money than dropouts, and high school grads make more than those who didn’t complete 12th grade.

Why is this the case? Does more education truly endow students with the skills necessary to succeed in the working world, or does education merely serve to certify that an individual has the intelligence and people skills needed to succeed? If the primary value of education is to signal conformity to employers’ expectations, then education as we know it is a waste of time, energy, and money.

Degrees range in practicality, but most—like economics—hardly spend time teaching the kinds of skills that translate to the jobs most graduates actually take. As Bryan puts it, “As far as I can tell, the only marketable skill I teach is how to be an economics professor.” The world certainly needs some economics professors, but the sentiment behind the point reflects an undeniable dirty little secret. Professors, by and large, teach students about their favorite subjects, not skills for career success.

For years, I’ve trumpeted the line that the purpose of higher education is not to teach skills but rather to teach students how to think. The Case Against Education deflates this argument with statistics and great humor. As the type of student who loved taking Russian literature, political philosophy, and economic history, I’m thrilled to speak with Bryan Caplan about bullshit and education.

Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.
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A transdisciplinary array of authors offering a new frame of reference for autotheory and its genre-bending synthesis of autobiography and critical theory.

Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025) tells the story of a field in formation. Building on traditions that have long fused life writing, philosophical encounter, embodied theorizing, and cultural critique, autotheory constructs new practices of critical theory. Transgressing generic boundaries and bridging stylistic registers, it crafts language that is intimate, analytic, playful, and insurgent. Editors Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan underscore autotheory's multiple genealogies and genre-bending forms while situating it within the contemporary political field. In this collection, autotheory emerges as a strut (of style), a straddle (of disciplines), a proliferation (of selves), an axis (of identifications), an index (of attachments), and an archive (of loves).An assemblage and an experience, Autotheories surveys the field's iterations and permutations without settling for classification or bowing to ossification.Contributors:Alex Brostoff, Jessica Bush, Judith Butler, Vilashini Cooppan, Carla Freccero, rl Goldberg, Jan Grue, Emma Lieber, Megan Moodie, Lili Owen Rowlands, John Patterson, Paul B. Preciado, Erica Richardson, Migueltzinta C. Solís, Jamieson Webster, Damon Ross Young, Stacey Young, Arianne ZwartjesMatthis Frickhoeffer is a scholar of critical theory and French thought with a background in literature studies, linguistics and art theory. His work focuses on questions of form, semiotics, and intertextuality. He teaches at the University of Texas at Dallas.
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At the heart of the modern world lie ventilation shafts. We may not notice them, but wherever there are tunnels, sewers, mines, car parks and energy stations under our feet, vents will be doing vital work keeping them cool and fume-free.

Vents come in a wonderful and inventive variety of forms. Adventurous Vents: A Journey through the Ventilation Shafts of Britain (Penguin, 2025) by Lucy Lavers, Judy Ovens, Suzanna Prizeman celebrates them both in their own right as intriguing individual structures, and as an innovative way to tell the story of Britain's subterranean industrial development from the eighteenth century to the present day.

Here are one hundred of the most interesting ventilation shafts, dotted around Britain, sometimes in the most surprising places. You'll find them masquerading as sculptures and small buildings, adorned with fine details or displaying their purpose with confidence.

Whether you're inspired to take off in search of them, or just to admire them from your armchair, vents are fabulous objects. By putting them – perhaps for the very first time – centre-stage,

Adventurous Vents celebrates a highly unusual but exciting architectural form.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Eliot and his wife Claire have been happily married for nearly four decades. They’ve raised two children in their sleepy Connecticut town and have weathered the inevitable ups and downs of a long life spent together. But eight years after Claire was diagnosed with cancer, the end is near, and it's time to gather loved ones and prepare for the inevitable.

Over the years of Claire’s illness, Eliot has willingly—lovingly—shifted into the role of caregiver, appreciating the intimacy and tenderness that comes with a role even more layered and complex than the one he performed as a devoted husband. But as he focuses on settling into what will be their last days and weeks together, Claire makes an unexpected request that leaves him reeling. In a moment, his carefully constructed world is shattered.

What if your partner’s dying wish broke your heart? How well do we know the deepest desires of those we love dearly? As Eliot is confronted with this profound turning point in his marriage and his life, he grapples with the man and husband he’s been, and with the great unknowns of Claire’s last days.

Ann Packer makes a triumphant return with this powerful novel that is tender and raw, visceral and unexpected. Emotionally vibrant and complex, Some Bright Nowhere (Harper Books, 2026) explores the profound gifts and unexpected costs of truly loving someone, and the fears and desires we experience as the end of life draws near.

Ann Packer is the author of two best-selling novels, Songs Without Words and The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, the latter of which received a Great Lakes Book Award, an American Library Association Award, and the Kate Chopin Literary Award. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Vogue, and Real Simple. Also the author of Mendocino and Other Stories, she lives in northern California with her family.

Recommended Books:


Loved and Missed, Susie Boyt


The Spare Room, Helen Garner


Everything/Nothing/Someone, Alice Carrier

Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers.
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In Killers of Roe: My Investigation Into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights (Legacy Lit, 2026) reporter Amy Littlefield investigates the secret killers and hidden motives behind the death of abortion rights. They are going to kill people, investigative reporter for The Nation Littlefield knew, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. As a journalist covering abortion for more than a decade, she had already chronicled many near-death experiences caused by anti-abortion policy. After the anti-abortion movement's staggering defeat of Roe, she became fascinated with their victory and why they seemed so much better organized than the pro-choice movement. She set out to investigate the murderers of Roe. Killers of Roe chronicles Littlefield's journey into the unexplored corners of the most successful social movement of our time. As in every good murder mystery, the killers turn out to be the people you least suspect, like a disgraced former Congressman obsessed with offshore tax evasion and an unknown suburban bureaucrat who wrote America's most diabolical anti-abortion policy. She reports from a sweaty presidential tour bus in DC, a chaotic Michigan courtroom where a former fetus thief is on trial, and a Texas town that rejects an abortion travel ban. She encounters surprising characters who shed light on how we got to this moment of authoritarian rule: from the pro-choice superfans she meets at the Reagan library to the Senator who couldn't stop kissing every woman he met. Along the way, Amy draws upon the stories of women who have died from anti-abortion policies and on her own experience as a mother to reveal the life-and-death stakes of America's abortion wars. At once clever and poignant reportage, this abortion whodunnit uncovers the deeper story of how we lost Roe--and how we can win back so much more.
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