A Conversation with Stanley Kurtz: Why Students Must Read Whole Books

Reading whole books in English class can help reverse America’s declining literacy rates.

Stanley Kurtz is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a key contributor to American public debates. He co-authored the BOOKS Act (Books Optimize Our Kids’ Schools) with Mark Bauerlein of First Things.

Why this conversation matters: Last year, American literacy rates fell to their lowest level since 1992. The BOOKS Act is Kurtz and Bauerlein’s attempt to address that trend while introducing the next generation to the Great Books of Western Civilization. As Ray Bradbury said, “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

RtW: Your BOOKS Act proposal starts from the premise that students today are simply not reading full-length books anymore—even in English classes. Why does that matter so much for education, and what’s at stake if the trend continues?

Kurtz: Books are the indispensable repositories of our tradition. They are how our heritage is handed down. Think of The Odyssey, Antigone, The Aeneid, Dante, Gulliver’s Travels, Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, Moby Dick, Walden, Little Women, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, and so many more of the West’s great works. If students cannot access and ultimately master works like these, they will be more than simply bereft of a fundamental skill. They will be ignorant of their heritage, and the West will fade as a result.