This very brief introductory chapter situates the Humanities within Higher Education as being at a critical and irrefutable turning point in history. It describes our current situation using US military language as one characterised by VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity). The Higher Education sector as a whole is experiencing huge instability. Amongst some of the forces that have contributed towards this situation are neoliberalism and marketisation. The chapter explains that a decision has been taken to keep the tone positive throughout the book in order to avoid giving rise to feelings of disempowerment, apathy, and defeatism. The chapter suggests that we need to think carefully about what we mean when we consider the question of value in the context of the Humanities and of Higher Education. It argues that the Humanities are a type of organic human technology that communicates human experience through time and in doing so transmits human ethical values to help us identify and implement strategies to become more fully human such as through building the capacity for greater compassion and self-awareness.