Article about Great Books of the Western World

Great Books of the Western World tannica publishing company) who proposed selecting the greatest books of the Western canon, and that Hutchins and Adler produce unabridged editions for publication, by Encyclopædia Britannica. Yet, Hutchins was wary of such a business endeavour, fearing that the books would be sold as a product, thereby devaluing them as cultural artefacts; nevertheless, he agreed to the business deal, and was paid $60,000 for the project. After deciding what subjects and authors to include, and how to present the materials, the project was begun, with a budget of $2,000,000. On April 15, 1952, the Great Books of the Western World were presented at a publication party in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, in New York City. In his speech, Hutchins said, “This is more than a set of books, and more than a liberal education. Great Books of the Western World is an act of piety. Here are the sources of our being. Here is our heritage. This is the West. This is its meaning for mankind.” The first two sets of books were given to Elizabeth II, Queen of the U.K., and to Harry S. Truman, the incumbent U.S. President.

The Great Books (second edition)

Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952, by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., to present the Great Books in a 54-volume set. The original editors had three criteria for including a book in the series: the book must be relevant to contemporary matters, and not only important in its historical context; it must be rewarding to re-read; and it must be a part of “the great conversation about the great ideas”, relevant to at least 25 of the 102 great ideas identified by the editors. The books were not chosen on the basis of ethnic and cultural inclusiveness, historical influence, or the editors’ agreement with the views expressed by the authors.[1]

The initial sales of the book sets were poor, with only 1,863 sets sold in 1952, and less than one-tenth of that number of book sets were sold in 1953. A financial debacle loomed until Encyclopædia Britannica altered the sales strategy, and sold the book set through experienced door-to-door encyclopædia-salesmen, as Hutchins had feared; but, through that method, 50,000 sets were sold in 1961. In 1963 the editors published Gateway to the Great Books, a ten-volume set of readings meant to introduce the authors and the subjects of the Great Books. Each year, from 1961 to 1998, the editors published The Great Ideas Today, an annual updating about the applicability of the Great Books to contemporary life.[2][3] The Internet and the E-book reader have made available some of the Great Books of the Western World in an on-line format.[4]

Initial sales were poor, so the sales strategy switched to a door-to-door operation which was much more successful. A second edition was published in 1990 in 60 volumes. Some translations were updated, some works were removed, and there were significant additions from the 20th century.

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History

On March 9, 1976 the U.S. Federal Trade Commission entered an opinion and order enjoining Encyclopedia BriThe project for the Great Books of the Western World be- tannica, Inc. from using: a) deceptive advertising pracgan at the University of Chicago, where the president, tices in recruiting sales agents and obtaining sales leads, in the door-to-door preRobert Hutchins, collaborated with Mortimer Adler to and b) deceptive sales practices [5] sentations of its sales agents. develop a course — generally aimed at businesspeople — for the purpose of filling the gaps in their liberal education; to render the reader as an intellectually rounded man or woman familiar with the Great Books of the Western canon, and knowledgeable of the great ideas devel- 2 Volumes oped in the course of three millennia. An original student of the project was William Benton (later a U.S. senator, Originally published in 54 volumes, The Great Books and then chief executive officer of the Encyclopædia Bri- of the Western World covers categories including 1

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VOLUMES

fiction, history, poetry, natural science, mathematics, Volume 5 philosophy, drama, politics, religion, economics, and ethics. Hutchins wrote the first volume, titled The Great • Aeschylus (translated into English verse by G.M. Conversation, as an introduction and discourse on liberal Cookson) education. Adler sponsored the next two volumes, “The • The Suppliant Maidens Great Ideas: A Syntopicon", as a way of emphasizing the unity of the set and, by extension, of Western thought in • The Persians general. A team of indexers spent months compiling ref• Seven Against Thebes erences to such topics as “Man’s freedom in relation to • Prometheus Bound the will of God” and “The denial of void or vacuum in favor of a plenum". They grouped the topics into 102 • The Oresteia chapters, for which Adler wrote 102 introductions. Four • Agamemnon colors identify each volume by subject area—Imaginative • Choephoroe Literature, Mathematics and the Natural Sciences, His• The Eumenides tory and Social Science, and Philosophy and Theology. The volumes contained the following works: • Sophocles (translated into English prose by Sir Richard C. Jebb) Volume 1 • The Great Conversation Volume 2 • Syntopicon I: Angel, Animal, Aristocracy, Art, Astronomy, Beauty, Being, Cause, Chance, Change, Citizen, Constitution, Courage, Custom and Convention, Definition, Democracy, Desire, Dialectic, Duty, Education, Element, Emotion, Eternity, Evolution, Experience, Family, Fate, Form, God, Good and Evil, Government, Habit, Happiness, History, Honor, Hypothesis, Idea, Immortality, Induction, Infinity, Judgment, Justice, Knowledge, Labor, Language, Law, Liberty, Life and Death, Logic, and Love Volume 3 • Syntopicon II: Man, Mathematics, Matter, Mechanics, Medicine, Memory and Imagination, Metaphysics, Mind, Monarchy, Nature, Necessity and Contingency, Oligarchy, One and Many, Opinion, Opposition, Philosophy, Physics, Pleasure and Pain, Poetry, Principle, Progress, Prophecy, Prudence, Punishment, Quality, Quantity, Reasoning, Relation, Religion, Revolution, Rhetoric, Same and Other, Science, Sense, Sign and Symbol, Sin, Slavery, Soul, Space, State, Temperance, Theology, Time, Truth, Tyranny, Universal and Particular, Virtue and Vice, War and Peace, Wealth, Will, Wisdom, and World Volume 4 • Homer (rendered into English prose by Samuel Butler) • The Iliad • The Odyssey

• The Oedipus Cycle • Oedipus the King • Oedipus at Colonus • Antigone • Ajax • Electra • The Trachiniae • Philoctetes • Euripides (translated into English prose by Edward P. Coleridge) • Rhesus • Medea • Hippolytus • Alcestis • Heracleidae • The Suppliants • Trojan Women • Ion • Helen • Andromache • Electra • Bacchantes • Hecuba • Heracles Mad • Phoenician Women • Orestes • Iphigeneia in Tauris • Iphigeneia at Aulis • Cyclops • Aristophanes (translated into English verse by Benjamin Bickley Rogers)

3 • The Acharnians

• Philebus • Laws

• The Knights • The Clouds • The Wasps • Peace • The Birds • The Frogs • Lysistrata • Thesmophoriazusae • Ecclesiazousae • Plutus

• The Seventh Letter (translated by J. Harward) Volume 8 • Aristotle • Categories • On Interpretation • Prior Analytics • Posterior Analytics • Topics • Sophistical Refutations

Volume 6

• Physics

• Herodotus • The History (translated by George Rawlinson) • Thucydides • History of the Peloponnesian War (translated by Richard Crawley and revised by R. Feetham)

• On the Heavens • On Generation and Corruption • Meteorology • Metaphysics • On the Soul • Minor biological works Volume 9

Volume 7

• Aristotle

• Plato • The Dialogues (translated by Benjamin Jowett) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Charmides Lysis Laches Protagoras Euthydemus Cratylus Phaedrus Ion Symposium Meno Euthyphro Apology Crito Phaedo Gorgias The Republic Timaeus Critias Parmenides Theaetetus Sophist Statesman

• History of Animals • Parts of Animals • On the Motion of Animals • On the Gait of Animals • On the Generation of Animals • Nicomachean Ethics • Politics • The Athenian Constitution • Rhetoric • Poetics Volume 10 • Hippocrates • Works • Galen • On the Natural Faculties Volume 11 • Euclid • The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements

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2 • Archimedes • On the Sphere and Cylinder • Measurement of a Circle • On Conoids and Spheroids • On Spirals • On the Equilibrium of Planes • The Sand Reckoner • The Quadrature of the Parabola • On Floating Bodies • Book of Lemmas • The Method Treating of Mechanical Problems • Apollonius of Perga • On Conic Sections • Nicomachus of Gerasa • Introduction to Arithmetic

Volume 12 • Lucretius • On the Nature of Things (translated by H.A.J. Munro) • Epictetus • The Discourses (translated by George Long) • Marcus Aurelius • The Meditations (translated by George Long) Volume 13 • Virgil • Eclogues • Georgics • Aeneid Volume 14 • Plutarch • The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Volume 15 • P. Cornelius Tacitus (translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb) • The Annals • The Histories

VOLUMES

Volume 16 • Ptolemy • Almagest, part 1 (translated by R. Catesby Taliaferro) • Nicolaus Copernicus • On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres (translated by Charles Glenn Wallis) • Johannes Kepler (translated by Charles Glenn Wallis) • Epitome of Copernican Astronomy (Books IV– V) • The Harmonies of the World (Book V) Volume 17 • Plotinus • The Six Enneads Volume 18 • Augustine of Hippo • The Confessions • The City of God • On Christian Doctrine Volume 19 • Thomas Aquinas • Summa Theologica (First part complete, selections from second part, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province and revised by Daniel J. Sullivan) Volume 20 • Thomas Aquinas • Summa Theologica (Selections from second and third parts and supplement, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province and revised by Daniel J. Sullivan) Volume 21 • Dante Alighieri • The Divine Comedy (Translated by Charles Eliot Norton) Volume 22

5 • Geoffrey Chaucer

• William Shakespeare

• Troilus and Criseyde

• Twelfth Night; or, What You Will

• The Canterbury Tales

• The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Volume 23 • Niccolò Machiavelli • The Prince • Thomas Hobbes • Leviathan Volume 24 • François Rabelais • Gargantua and Pantagruel Volume 25 • Michel Eyquem de Montaigne • Essays Volume 26 • William Shakespeare • The First Part of King Henry the Sixth • The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth • The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth • The Tragedy of Richard the Third • The Comedy of Errors • Titus Andronicus • The Taming of the Shrew

• The Merry Wives of Windsor • Troilus and Cressida • All’s Well That Ends Well • Measure for Measure • Othello, the Moor of Venice • King Lear • Macbeth • Antony and Cleopatra • Coriolanus • Timon of Athens • Pericles, Prince of Tyre • Cymbeline • The Winter’s Tale • The Tempest • The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth • Sonnets Volume 28 • William Gilbert • On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies • Galileo Galilei • Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences • William Harvey

• The Two Gentlemen of Verona

• On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals

• Love’s Labour’s Lost

• On the Circulation of Blood

• Romeo and Juliet

• On the Generation of Animals

• The Tragedy of King Richard the Second • A Midsummer Night’s Dream • The Life and Death of King John • The Merchant of Venice • The First Part of King Henry the Fourth • The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth • Much Ado About Nothing • The Life of King Henry the Fifth • Julius Caesar • As You Like It Volume 27

Volume 29 • Miguel de Cervantes • The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha Volume 30 • Sir Francis Bacon • The Advancement of Learning • Novum Organum • New Atlantis

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Volume 31 • René Descartes • Rules for the Direction of the Mind • Discourse on the Method • Meditations on First Philosophy • Objections Against the Meditations and Replies

VOLUMES

Volume 36 • Jonathan Swift • Gulliver’s Travels • Laurence Sterne • The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

• The Geometry • Benedict de Spinoza • Ethics Volume 32 • John Milton • English Minor Poems • Paradise Lost • Samson Agonistes • Areopagitica

Volume 37 • Henry Fielding • The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling Volume 38 • Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu • The Spirit of the Laws • Jean Jacques Rousseau • A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

Volume 33 • Blaise Pascal • The Provincial Letters • Pensées • Scientific and mathematical essays Volume 34 • Sir Isaac Newton • Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy • Optics • Christian Huygens • Treatise on Light Volume 35 • John Locke • A Letter Concerning Toleration • Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay • An Essay Concerning Human Understanding • George Berkeley • The Principles of Human Knowledge • David Hume • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

• A Discourse on Political Economy • The Social Contract Volume 39 • Adam Smith • An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Volume 40 • Edward Gibbon • The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Part 1) Volume 41 • Edward Gibbon • The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Part 2) Volume 42 • Immanuel Kant • Critique of Pure Reason • Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Critique of Practical Reason

7 • Excerpts from The Metaphysics of Morals

• Faust

• Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics with a note on Con- Volume 48 science • Herman Melville • General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals • Moby Dick; or, The Whale • The Science of Right • The Critique of Judgement Volume 43 • American State Papers • Declaration of Independence • Articles of Confederation

Volume 49 • Charles Darwin • The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

• The Constitution of the United States of Volume 50 America • Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay • The Federalist • John Stuart Mill • On Liberty • Considerations on Representative Government • Utilitarianism Volume 44 • James Boswell • The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 45 • Antoine Laurent Lavoisier • Elements of Chemistry • Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier • Analytical Theory of Heat

• Karl Marx • Capital • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels • Manifesto of the Communist Party Volume 51 • Count Leo Tolstoy • War and Peace Volume 52 • Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky • The Brothers Karamazov Volume 53 • William James • The Principles of Psychology

• Michael Faraday • Experimental Researches in Electricity Volume 46 • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel • The Philosophy of Right • The Philosophy of History Volume 47 • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Volume 54 • Sigmund Freud • The Origin and Development of PsychoAnalysis • Selected Papers on Hysteria • The Sexual Enlightenment of Children • The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy • Observations on “Wild” Psycho-Analysis • The Interpretation of Dreams

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3 • On Narcissism

• Don Juan

• Instincts and Their Vicissitudes

• The Miser

• Repression

• The Would-Be Gentleman

• The Unconscious

• The Imaginary Invalid

• A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis • Beyond the Pleasure Principle • Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego • The Ego and the Id • Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety

• Jean Racine • Bérénice • Phèdre Volume 34

• Thoughts for the Times on War and Death • Civilization and Its Discontents • New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis

• Voltaire • Candide • Denis Diderot

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Second edition

• Rameau’s Nephew

In 1990 a second edition of Great Books of the Western Volume 43 World was published, with updated translations and six more volumes of material covering the 20th century, an • Søren Kierkegaard era of which the first edition was nearly devoid. A number of pre-20th century books were also added, and four • Fear and Trembling were dropped: Apollonius’ On Conic Sections, Laurence • Friedrich Nietzsche Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, and Joseph Fourier’s Analytical Theory of Heat. Adler • Beyond Good and Evil later expressed regret about dropping On Conic Sections and Tom Jones. Adler also voiced disagreement with the addition of Voltaire’s Candide, and said that the Syntopi- Volume 44 con should have included references to the Koran. He • Alexis de Tocqueville addressed criticisms that the set was too heavily Western European and did not adequately represent women and • Democracy in America minority authors.[6] The pre-20th century books added (volume numbering is Volume 45 not strictly compatible with the first edition due to rearrangement of some books): • Honoré de Balzac Volume 20 • Cousin Bette • John Calvin • Institutes of the Christian Religion (Selections) Volume 23 • Erasmus • The Praise of Folly Volume 31 • Molière • The School for Wives • The Critique of the School for Wives • Tartuffe

Volume 46 • Jane Austen • Emma • George Eliot • Middlemarch Volume 47 • Charles Dickens • Little Dorrit Volume 48

SECOND EDITION

9 • Mark Twain • Huckleberry Finn Volume 52

• Relativity: The Special and the General Theory • Arthur Eddington • The Expanding Universe • Niels Bohr

• Henrik Ibsen • A Doll’s House

• Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (selections)

• The Wild Duck

• Discussion with Einstein on Epistemology

• Hedda Gabler • The Master Builder The six volumes of 20th century material consisted of the following: Volume 55 • William James • Pragmatism • Henri Bergson • "An Introduction to Metaphysics" • John Dewey

• G. H. Hardy • A Mathematician’s Apology • Werner Heisenberg • Physics and Philosophy • Erwin Schrödinger • What Is Life? • Theodosius Dobzhansky • Genetics and the Origin of Species • C. H. Waddington • The Nature of Life

• Experience and Education • Alfred North Whitehead • Science and the Modern World • Bertrand Russell • The Problems of Philosophy • Martin Heidegger • What Is Metaphysics? • Ludwig Wittgenstein • Philosophical Investigations • Karl Barth • The Word of God and the Word of Man Volume 56 • Henri Poincaré • Science and Hypothesis • Max Planck • Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers • Alfred North Whitehead • An Introduction to Mathematics • Albert Einstein

Volume 57 • Thorstein Veblen • The Theory of the Leisure Class • R. H. Tawney • The Acquisitive Society • John Maynard Keynes • The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money Volume 58 • Sir James George Frazer • The Golden Bough (selections) • Max Weber • Essays in Sociology (selections) • Johan Huizinga • The Autumn of the Middle Ages • Claude Lévi-Strauss • Structural Anthropology (selections) Volume 59

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4 CRITICISMS AND RESPONSES

• Henry James • The Beast in the Jungle • George Bernard Shaw • Saint Joan • Joseph Conrad • Heart of Darkness • Anton Chekhov

• Mother Courage and Her Children • Ernest Hemingway • The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber • George Orwell • Animal Farm • Samuel Beckett • Waiting for Godot

• Uncle Vanya • Luigi Pirandello • Six Characters in Search of an Author

4 Criticisms and responses 4.1 Authors

• Marcel Proust

The choice of authors has come under attack, with some "Swann in dismissing the project as a celebration of dead European males, ignoring contributions of women and nonEuropean authors.[7][8] The criticism swelled in tandem • Willa Cather with the feminist and civil rights movements.[9] Similarly, in his Europe: A History, Norman Davies criticizes • A Lost Lady the compilation for overrepresenting selected parts of the • Thomas Mann western world, especially Britain and the U.S., while ignoring the other, particularly Central and Eastern Europe. • Death in Venice According to his calculation, in 151 authors included in both editions, there are 49 English or American authors, • James Joyce 27 Frenchmen, 20 Germans, 15 ancient Greeks, 9 ancient • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Romans, 6 Russians, 4 Scandinavians, 3 Spaniards, 3 Italians, 3 Irishmen, 3 Scots, and 3 Eastern Europeans. Prejudices and preferences, he concludes, are self-evident. Volume 60 • Remembrance of Things Past: Love"

• Virginia Woolf • To the Lighthouse • Franz Kafka • The Metamorphosis • D. H. Lawrence • The Prussian Officer • T. S. Eliot • The Waste Land • Eugene O'Neill • Mourning Becomes Electra • F. Scott Fitzgerald • The Great Gatsby • William Faulkner • A Rose for Emily • Bertolt Brecht

In response, such criticisms have been derided as ad hominem and biased in themselves. The counterargument maintains that such criticisms discount the importance of books solely because of generic, imprecise and possibly irrelevant characteristics of the books’ authors, rather than because of the content of the books themselves.[10]

4.2 Works Others thought that while the selected authors were worthy, too much emphasis was placed on the complete works of a single author rather than a wider selection of authors and representative works (for instance, all of Shakespeare's plays are included). The second edition of the set already contained 130 authors and 517 individual works. The editors point out that the guides to additional reading for each topic in the Syntopicon refer the interested reader to many more authors.[11]

4.3 Difficulty The scientific and mathematical selections came under criticism for being incomprehensible to the average

11 reader, especially with the absence of any sort of critical apparatus. The second edition did drop two scientific works, by Apollonius and Fourier, in part because of their perceived difficulty for the average reader. Nevertheless, the editors steadfastly maintain that average readers are capable of understanding far more than the critics deem possible. Robert Hutchins stated this view in the introduction to the first edition: Because the great bulk of mankind have never had the chance to get a liberal education, it cannot be “proved” that they can get it. Neither can it be “proved” that they cannot. The statement of the ideal, however, is of value in indicating the direction that education should take.[12]

4.4

Rationale

Since the great majority of the works were still in print, one critic noted that the company could have saved two million dollars and simply written a list. Encyclopædia Britannica’s aggressive promotion produced solid sales. Dense formatting also did not help readability.[13] The second edition selected translations that were generally considered an improvement, though the cramped typography remained. Through reading plans and the Syntopicon, the editors have attempted to guide readers through the set.[14]

4.5

Response to criticisms

The editors responded that the set contains wide-ranging debates representing many viewpoints on significant issues, not a monolithic school of thought. Mortimer Adler argued in the introduction to the second edition: Presenting a wide variety and divergence of views or opinions, among which there is likely to be some truth but also much more error, the Syntopicon [and by extension the larger set itself] invites readers to think for themselves and make up their own minds on every topic under consideration.[15]

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See also • John Erskine • Charles W. Eliot • Robert Maynard Hutchins • Mortimer J. Adler • Educational perennialism

• Western canon • Great Books • Harvard Classics • Liberal arts

6 References [1] “Selecting Works for the 1990 Edition of the Great Books of the Western World”, Dr. Mortimer Adler [2] Milton Meyer (1993). "Robert Maynard Hutchins: A Memoir". University of California Press. Retrieved 200705-30. This biography of Robert M. Hutchins contains an extensive discussion of the Great Books project. [3] Carrie Golus (2002-07-11). “Special Collections tells the story of a cornerstone of American education”. The University of Chicago Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-05-30. [4] “Great Books of the Western World (eBooks @ University of Adelaide)". University of Adelaide. Retrieved 7 June 2012. [5] “In the Matter of Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. et al., pp.421-541” (PDF). [6] Venant, Elizabeth (3 December 1990). “A Curmudgeon Stands His Ground”. The Los Angeles Times. [7] Sabrina Walters (2001-07-01). “Great Books won Adler fame, scorn”. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2007-07-01. [8] Peter Temes (2001-07-03). “Death of a Great Reader and Philosopher”. Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 2007-11-04. Retrieved 2007-07-11. [9] John Berlau (August 2001). “What Happened to the Great Ideas? – Mortimer J. Adler’s Great Books programs”. Insight Magazine Insight on the News 17 (32): 16. Retrieved March 2014. Harvard University’s Henry Louis Gates blasted the Great Books for showing 'profound disrespect for the intellectual capacities of people of color – red, brown or yellow.' [10] Mortimer Adler (September 1997). “Selecting works for the 1990 edition of Great Books of the Western World”. Great Books Index. Retrieved 2007-05-29. We did not base our selections on an author’s nationality, religion, politics, or field of study; nor on an author’s race or gender. Great books were not chosen to make up quotas of any kind; there was no “affirmative action” in the process. [11] Mortimer J. Adler (1990). “Bibliography of Additional Readings”. The Syntopicon: II. Great Books of the Western World, vol. 1-2 (2nd ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. pp. 909–996. ISBN 0-85229-531-6. [12] Robert M. Hutchins (1952). “Chapter VI: Education for All”. The Great Conversation. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. p. 44.

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[13] Dwight Macdonald. “The Book-of-the-Millennium Club”. 29 November 1952 with later appendix. The New Yorker. Retrieved 2007-05-29. I also wonder how many of the over 100,000 customers who have by now caved in under the pressure of Mr. Harden and his banner-bearing colleagues are doing much browsing in these upland pastures? [14] Mortimer J. Adler (1990). The Great Conversation (2nd ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. pp. 33–34 for discussion of new translations, pp.74–98 for reading plans and guides. ISBN 0-85229-531-6. [15] Mortimer J. Adler (1990). “Section 1: The Great Books and the Great Ideas”. The Great Conversation (2nd ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. p. 27. ISBN 0-85229-5316.

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External links • Official Britannica web page for the Great Books • Center for the Study of the Great Ideas Mortimer Adler web pages with extensive discussion of the Great Books • Greater Books - a site documenting lists of “great books,” classics, canons, including the Great Books of the Western World

EXTERNAL LINKS

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Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

• Great Books of the Western World Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_World?oldid=709772925 Contributors: M~enwiki, Heron, Hotlorp, DavidWBrooks, Adam Bishop, Stone, Mjklin, Hyacinth, Fibonacci, Goethean, Altenmann, Psychonaut, Mirv, Intangir, Dina, Ancheta Wis, Netoholic, DO'Neil, Kpalion, Prosfilaes, Gzornenplatz, Alan Nicoll, R. fiend, Antandrus, Lesgles, Rdsmith4, Mysidia, Mozzerati, Sam Hocevar, MakeRocketGoNow, DMG413, Ham II, WikiEros, Rich Farmbrough, Vsmith, Livajo, Zenohockey, Liberatus, Susvolans, Wareh, Chris Kern, Olivier Mengué, Carbon Caryatid, Fuzlogic, N2lect2el, Alvis, Mel Etitis, RHaworth, Timo Laine, Carcharoth, Robert K S, Marudubshinki, Jshadias, Casey Abell, Koavf, NatusRoma, JonathanAquino, Baojia, Afterwriting, JanSuchy, Ground Zero, JdforresterBot, Czar, Cmadler, Gareth E. Kegg, Chobot, EamonnPKeane, RussBot, TimNelson, DanMS, Ravenous, Wiki alf, Dr. R, Zagalejo, Igiffin, Reject, Alex Ruddick, InverseHypercube, Betacommand, Guermantes, Snori, Aaron Solomon Adelman, D-Rock, Carterpcc, Snowmanradio, Ryan Roos, Jon Awbrey, Grommel~enwiki, ArglebargleIV, Jim.belk, Stearnsbrian, Rizome~enwiki, JimStyle61093475, Isokrates, Woodshed, Braddodson, Albertod4, Cyrusc, Neelix, Stebbins, Gogo Dodo, Travisthehobbit, Ssilvers, Thijs!bot, Brian Boru is awesome, Mr pand, Blathnaid, Nukemason, Wing Nut, Ekabhishek, TRebitzki, JaGa, WLU, R'n'B, AntiSpamBot, Plasticup, DadaNeem, Ljgua124, Pdcook, Idioma-bot, Steven J. Anderson, Kevingh, Lfstevens.us, Kcmo64, Michaeldsuarez, Rittoku, Alcmaeonid, Rontrigger, Fratrep, CiudadanoGlobal, Niceguyedc, DragonBot, Estirabot, Bracton, BOTarate, Mlaffs, Apparition11, XLinkBot, Addbot, Wran, Ave Caesar, Tassedethe, Lightbot, Luckas-bot, AnomieBOT, Mike Hayes, Materialscientist, Citation bot, Yaoweih, Srich32977, J04n, Thomasthelibrarian, RibotBOT, FreeKnowledgeCreator, Paine Ellsworth, Dogposter, Xophist, Djbailey, Twistlethrop, Sidevar, Jhiltenb, GoingBatty, H3llBot, Erianna, APTEM, ClueBot NG, Vinícius Machado Vogt, Helpful Pixie Bot, Marcocapelle, Ninney, Cengime, BattyBot, American In Brazil, Shearflyer, FireflySixtySeven, Vincenthamill3, Nyctimene and Anonymous: 96

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Content license

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