"Professor Giroux's thinking touches on the sciences of education, the sociology of education, studies on youth, cultural policies, critical pedagogy, cultural and media studies. A versatile thinker, Mr. Giroux remains eminently critical of the excesses of our education systems, criticizing American universities for giving too much importance to the requirements of different external pressure groups when determining the content of programs and courses, from primary to higher education. This tendency is even found in the descriptions of the profiles sought for possible rectors or presidents of universities." (Click here to read the full review.)

"Henry Giroux is one of the most preeminent (and prolific) cultural theorists of neoliberalism, investigating the most urgent issues of our contemporary world, not only through the lens of moral outrage about what is happening to the planet and the people, but with a razor-sharp intellect that recognizes our extraordinary times requires new ways of understanding, not just the rehashing and reworking of old concepts for a different world. When Gramsci’s “optimism of the will” becomes active, it will be because Henry Giroux’s “pessimism of the intellect” has provided us with the conceptual tools to become democratic citizens. This collection, spanning Giroux’s entire career, shows the scope and depth of what real intellectual work looks like. If we are to avoid the suicidal consequences of neoliberal capitalism it will be because of the belief in public pedagogy that writers such as Giroux embody. His hope for another world is organically part of his intellectual project, not just an abstract wish."

Sut Jhally, Professor of Communication, University of Massachusetts, Founder and Executive Director, Media Education Foundation

"The connections between power, politics, and education can be elusive at times, which is intentional by the powers that be. But Giroux has never been fooled or scared to make the connections that explain power and the injustice inflicted on the most vulnerable. Giroux’s body of work is clear, concise, razor sharp, and aimed at not only examining power, but also its impact on human life. The New Henry Giroux Reader is indispensable for anyone interested in understanding and undoing this American horror story we are all living."

Bettina L. Love, Associate Professor, University of Georgia, Department of Educational Theory & Practice

"These are times when public intellectuals of the caliber of Henry Giroux are much needed and unfortunately quite rare. This is a timely book, superbly edited, and cleverly organized, not to please readers with niceties and wishful thinking, but to engage with difficult ideas and encourage reflections and actions to resist and change. Giroux has an uncanny ability to walk the critical tightrope required to simultaneously point to the terror and violence of contemporary societies while providing ideas and metaphors that could make many readers uncomfortable but more importantly, hopeful. This book presents Giroux’s pioneering key texts in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies, and critical theory showing his original and challenging perspectives without prescriptive nostalgia or sentimentalism. This is a book that we need to read and discuss, not in search of recipes or easy solutions, but because it will help each of us to explore our individual and social responses in these troubled times and imagine what we can do to more effectively assume our responsibilities as teachers, students, citizens, and activists."

Gustavo E. Fischman, Professor, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, ASU

“For four decades, Henry Giroux has transformed our understanding of politics, culture, and education. Throughout his career, he has founded critical pedagogy, brought cultural studies into education, transformed our understanding of the neoliberal and authoritarian remaking of K12 and Higher Education, and provided a powerful vision for the emancipatory struggle over contemporary institutions, the public sphere, and civil society. By emphasizing the pedagogical dimensions of culture and politics, Giroux’s work highlights the centrality of learning for forging people’s capacities to exercise democratic self-governance. At the current historical juncture, with rising authoritarianism, the dangerous decline of democracy, neoliberal cultures of cruelty, resurgent positivism, White supremacy, and technocratic control, Giroux’s body of scholarship and public intellectual engagement creatively offers trenchant analyses and new theoretical tools to comprehend and impact the social world. Giroux’s work is exactly what we need in the quest for a more democratic, just, and hopeful future.”

Kenneth J. Saltman, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth