安德鲁·阿伯特是美国最重要的社会学家之一。他将自己绝大部分的生涯投入对知识体系的研究当中，本书收集的一系列文章正展现了其近年来对大学、学术生活以及知识所做的思考。在这些文章中，阿伯特探寻专业教育和通识教育各自的价值，追问美国大学本科教育的根本目的；面对当下过剩的知识和令人存疑的知识的未来，辨析出版社、图书馆、学术界的应对策略；他还对三位闻名于世的中国社会学家陈达、瞿同祖、费孝通的作品进行评析，展现其对“教育”作为一种人类共同命运的深刻关注。

The humanities, considered by many as irrelevant for modern careers and hopelessly devoid of funding, seem to be in a perpetual state of crisis, at the mercy of modernizing and technological forces that are driving universities towards academic pursuits that pull in grant money and direct students to lucrative careers. But as Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon show, this crisis isn’t new—in fact, it’s as old as the humanities themselves. Today’s humanities scholars experience and react to basic pressures in ways that are strikingly similar to their nineteenth-century German counterparts. The humanities came into their own as scholars framed their work as a unique resource for resolving crises of meaning and value that threatened other cultural or social goods. The self-understanding of the modern humanities didn’t merely take shape in response to a perceived crisis; it also made crisis a core part of its project. Through this critical, historical perspective, Permanent Crisis can take scholars and anyone who cares about the humanities beyond the usual scolding, exhorting, and hand-wringing into clearer, more effective thinking about the fate of the humanities. Building on ideas from Max Weber and Friedrich Nietzsche to Helen Small and Danielle Allen, Reitter and Wellmon dig into the very idea of the humanities as a way to find meaning and coherence in the world.