In Literature Lost, John Ellis subjects the fashionable notions that now dominate college curricula in the humanities to a careful historical and logical analysis. The result is a devastating critique and a comprehensive rebuttal of the claims made for the reigning orthodoxy. " Ellis is] not the first . . . to express dismay at the extraordinary changes that have come over the teaching of the humanities in American universities]; what distinguishes him is the clarity of his perceptions, and his willingness not merely to deplore the new trends but-faithful to an academic tradition he believes...

"The focus of any genuinely new piece of criticism or interpretation must be on the creative act of finding the new, but deconstruction puts the matter the other way around: its emphasis is on debunking the old. But aside from the fact that this program is inherently uninteresting, it is, in fact, not at all clear that it is possible. . . . T]he naivete of the crowd is deconstruction's very starting point, and its subsequent move is as much an emotional as an intellectual leap to a position that feels different as much in the one way as the other. . . ." --From the book