“Engaging. . . . Not guidance counselors but intellectual guides, Summit and Vermeule trace their students’ predicament to the origins of Western philosophy. ‘The rhetoric of action and contemplation,’ they proclaim, ‘is nothing less than the unacknowledged medium of self-understanding in the modern world.’ In their telling, it becomes a medium in which to understand, and criticize, not just the culture of fuzzies and techies at Stanford, but the nature of stress, the appeal of cowboy politicians, the point of education, and the search for meaningful work.”

LA Review of Books

“Summit and Vermeule taught a course at Stanford on this dichotomy between the cultivation of wisdom and the demonstration of skills. Action Versus Contemplation: Why an Ancient Debate Still Matters begins with an appeal for balance rather than conflict when these two realms are juxtaposed. . . . Activity without leisure proves meaningless; downtime without engagement turns purposelessness. Summit and Vermeule, trained as literary critics, aim this brief book towards those who seek to recover a wise balance while never dismissing the life of the mind.”

PopMatters

"Though the book will be valuable to a wide readership, the recurring theme of current trends in education makes it particularly important within the academy. This engaging and clever book will generate important conversations. Highly recommended."

Choice

"A fascinating and inspiring tour of big ideas--worth both contemplating and acting on."

Sarah Bakewell, author of At the Existentialist Cafe

"Action versus Contemplation brings a cooling sense of balance to a whole range of important and often highly polarized arguments about technology, work, education, and more. How liberating to discover that we don’t need to choose between nostalgia and philistinism, Captain Ludd and Dr. Pangloss. Even better, the authors give us not just historical elaborations of the theoretical complementarity of action and contemplation, but actual, already-existing examples of the middle position at work today. They show us that, no matter how 'soulless' society seems to become, meaning-seeking behavior does and always will continue."

William Deresiewicz, author of Excellent Sheep

"This is a very subtle and surprising book that nevertheless goes down easy because you expect it to take a side in a binary (i.e., to take your side), but instead it seeks to transcend that binary. There's great generosity of spirit in their writing and thinking, and that generosity will have a salutary effect on all those whose thinking this book will touch. Action versus Contemplation is itself a contemplative document meant to intervene in the world it addresses, to get us to rethink practical matters, and to act in ways that will promote thinking. It urges action as a way of thinking, and thinking as a way of acting, and is a model of what it advocates for."

William Flesch, Brandeis University

"Action Versus Contemplation grew out of an Introduction to Humanities course the authors co-taught at Stanford. They saw beneficial effects in both students’ lives and their own when that 'versus' gave way to an 'and.' They also see evidence—in student surveys, 'locavore' movements, and emerging workplace cultures—that people are searching for new syntheses of action and contemplation. They make keen suggestions throughout the study about how the university should facilitate that search."

Commonweal

"This book will surely appeal to so many categories of intellectuals, from the humanities as well as the sciences, university faculty as well as administrators, and even ordinary people who are [in] search of overcoming the uneasy features of a one-sided life."

Philosophia