Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?

This is a book about excellence, more particularly about the conditions under which excellence is possible in our kind of society; but it is also—inevitably—a book about equality, about the kinds of equality that can and must be honored, and the kinds that cannot be forced.
Such a book must raise some questions which Americans have shown little inclination to discuss rationally.
What are the characteristic difficulties a democracy encounters in pursuing excellence? Is there a way out of t...