Michel Freitag admirably traces the role of intellectuals in society, from Ancient Greece until the present day. He also maintains that intellectuals can no longer define themselves by the space in which they were acknowledged before – public space. They must thus turn to something, such as educational institutions or protest movements, to help set the contemporary world back on course. He also addresses the question of the risk of intellectuals isolating themselves in dogma, seeing instead in theory an opportunity to open up to universal experiences.