Natalia Rogach Alexander, "Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey" (Columbia UP, 2025)

About this episode

The episode discusses Natalia Rogach Alexander's book on John Dewey's contributions to education and democracy.

John Dewey is among history’s most celebrated thinkers on democracy and education, yet he has often been underappreciated and misunderstood as a philosopher. This book paints a fresh portrait of Dewey as not only a reformer of schooling but also a profound theorist of human development, whose vision of the centrality of education to democracy, philosophy, and flourishing can still inspire us today. What can we learn from this great thinker as we face challenges such as widespread drudgery and disaffection, estrangement among individuals and groups, and a crisis of democracy? This book supplies the answers, offering a bold new account of Dewey as an educational theorist who is essential for our troubled times. Revealing the true scope of Dewey’s educational vision, this book provides a new perspective on a neglected aspect of the philosophical tradition. Natalia Rogach Alexander's Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey (Columbia University Press, 2025) presents an alternative canon—running from Plato to Rousseau to Du Bois—that recasts philosophy in terms of education and, in so doing, opens new pathways for social critique and the liberation of human potential. Natalia…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Natalia Rogach Alexander

Topics covered

• education
• democracy
• philosophy
• human development
• social critique

Keywords

• John Dewey
• education
• democracy
• philosophy
• human development
• social critique
• Natalia Rogach Alexander

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Columbia University Press

Books & works: Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey

More episodes of New Books in Biography & Memoir

• The Legacy of Chaim Grade · June 13, 2026
• “America’s Founding Son”: Author & Musician Bob Crawford on the Life of John Quincy Adams · June 11, 2026
• Understanding Themistocles: A Discussion with Author Michael Scott · June 9, 2026 · 36 min
• Andrea Gunraj, "Go-Between Girl: My Indentured Roots as Reclaimed Present" (McClelland & Stewart, 2026) · June 8, 2026 · 25 min
• Mollie Barnes, "Paper Heroines: Women Writers in Conversation and Community Across the Sea Islands, 1838-1902" (U South Carolina Press, 2026) · June 4, 2026 · 50 min
• A Divine Comedy: On Hollywood, Creativity, and Religion with Rob Long · June 3, 2026 · 1h 4m