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Great Books of the Western World

February 13, 2023

For The Learning Channel's series about great books, see Great Books (TV program).

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 Great Books (second edition)

The original editors had three criteria for including a book in the series drawn from Western Civilization: the book must have been relevant to contemporary matters, and not only important in its historical context; it must be rewarding to re-read repeatedly with respect to liberal education; and it must be a part of "the great conversation about the great ideas", relevant to at least 25 of the 102 "Great Ideas" as identified by the editor of the series's comprehensive index, what they dubbed the Syntopicon, to which they belonged. The books were not chosen on the basis of ethnic and cultural inclusiveness, (historical influence being seen as sufficient by itself to be included), nor on whether the editors agreed with the views expressed by the authors.[1]

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 located in six new, separate volumes.

History

The project for the Great Books of the Western World began at the University of Chicago, where the president, Robert Hutchins, collaborated with Mortimer Adler to develop a course there of a type which had been originated by John Erskine at Columbia University in 1921 with the innovation of a "round table"-type approach to reading and discussing great books among professors and undergraduates.[2]—generally aimed at businessmen. The purposes they had in mind were for filling the gaps in their liberal education (notably including Hutchins' own self-confessed gaps) and 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 visited in the "Great Conversation" over the course of three millennia.

An original student of the project was William Benton (later a U.S. senator, and then chief executive officer of the Encyclopædia Britannica publishing company) who in 1943 proposed selecting the greatest books of the Western canon, and that Hutchins and Adler produce unabridged editions for publication, by Encyclopædia Britannica. Hutchins was at first wary of the idea, fearing that commodifying the books would devalue them as cultural artifacts; nevertheless, he agreed to the business deal and was paid $60,000 for his work on the project. Benton at first refused the deal on the basis that the set of works selected would be just that, artifacts, and never actually read.

By chance, Adler was re-reading a source he was using for a book he was writing at the time called How to Think about War and Peace (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169933.How_to_Think_about_War_and_Peace ). He noted to the person who had provided the book for him that, while he remembered reading this book as a source for the book he was writing, he had missed the instructive passage this person was pointing out to him and wondered why that had happened. They realized that Adler had read the book focusing on one idea about war and peace and missed the particular significance and importance of the passage about a different subject. Adler struck on the idea to accede to assume the task of producing an index for the whole set for Hutchins by means of which readers could have a sort of "random access" to the works, with the hoped-for result that they would develop a greater interest in the works themselves.[3]

Failure to come to terms

After deciding what subjects and authors to include, and how to present the materials, the indexing part of the project was begun, with a budget of another $60,000. Adler began compiling what his group called the "Greek index" bearing on the works selected from ancient Greece, expecting completion of the entire project within six months. After two years, the Greek index was declared to be a resounding failure. The inferior terms under the Great Ideas across the centuries in which the Greek-language works were written had shifted in their significance, and the preliminary index reflected that, the ideas presented not having "come to terms" with each other.[4]

During those times, Adler had a flash of insight. He set his group re-reading each work preliminarily with a single assigned subordinate idea in mind in the form of a fairly elaborate phrase. If any instances of the idea appeared, they could collate them with co-ordinate ideas of a similar type collected the same way, use the material thus noted to better re-frame the larger idea structure and then finally start re-reading the work in its entirety with revised phrasing to do the complete indexing, of ideas.[5]

Eventual popular success

In 1945, Adler began writing the initial forms of the essays for the Great Ideas and six years and $940,000 more later, 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 United Kingdom, and to Harry S. Truman, the incumbent U.S. President. Adler appeared on the cover of Time magazine for a story about the set of works and its idea index and inventory of Western topics of thought at large, of sorts.[6]

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.[7][8] According to Alex Beam, Great Books of the Western World eventually sold a million sets.[9] The Internet and the E-book reader have made available some of the Great Books of the Western World in an on-line format.[10]

Volumes

Originally published in 54 volumes, The Great Books of the Western World covers categories including fiction, history, poetry, natural science, mathematics, philosophy, drama, politics, religion, economics, and ethics. Hutchins wrote the first volume, titled The Great Conversation, as an introduction and discourse on liberal education. Adler sponsored the next two volumes, "The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon", as a way of emphasizing the unity of the set and, by extension, of Western thought in general. A team of indexers spent months compiling references to such topics as "Man's freedom in relation to the will of God" and "The denial of void or vacuum in favor of a plenum". They grouped the topics into 102 chapters, for which Adler wrote the 102 introductions. Four colors identify each volume by subject area—Imaginative Literature, Mathematics and the Natural Sciences, History and Social Science, and Philosophy and Theology. The volumes contained the following works:

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

Volume 4

Volume 5

Volume 6

Volume 7

Volume 8

Volume 9

Volume 10

Volume 11

Volume 12

Volume 13

Volume 14

Volume 15

Volume 16

Volume 17

Volume 18

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

Volume 21

Volume 22

Volume 23

Volume 24

Volume 25

Volume 26

Volume 27

Volume 28

Volume 29

Volume 30

Volume 31

Volume 32

Volume 33

Volume 34

Volume 35

Volume 36

Volume 37

Volume 38

Volume 39

Volume 40

Volume 41

Volume 42

Volume 43

Volume 44

Volume 45

Volume 46

Volume 47

Volume 48

Volume 49

Volume 50

Volume 51

Volume 52

Volume 53

Volume 54

Second edition

The second edition of Great Books of the Western World, 1990, saw an increase from 54 to 60 volumes, with updated translations. The six new volumes concerned the 20th century, an era of which the first edition's sole representative was Freud. Some of the other volumes were re-arranged, with even more pre-20th century material added but with four texts deleted: Apollonius' On Conic Sections, Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, and Joseph Fourier's Analytical Theory of Heat. Adler 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 Syntopicon should have included references to the Koran. He addressed criticisms that the set was too heavily Western European and did not adequately represent women and minority authors.[11] Four women authors were included, where previously there were none.[12]

The added pre-20th century texts appear in these volumes (some of the accompanying content of these volumes differs from the first edition volume of that number):

Volume 20

Volume 23

Volume 31

Volume 34

Volume 43

Volume 44

Volume 45

Volume 46

Volume 47

Volume 48

Volume 52

The contents of the six volumes of added 20th-century material:

Volume 55

Volume 56

Volume 57

Volume 58

Volume 59

Volume 60

Criticisms and responses

Authors

The choice of authors has come under attack, with some dismissing the project as a celebration of European men, ignoring contributions of women and non-European authors.[13][14] The criticism swelled in tandem with the feminist and civil rights movements.[15] Similarly, in his Europe: A History, Norman Davies criticizes the compilation for overrepresenting selected parts of the western world, especially Britain and the U.S., while ignoring the other, particularly Central and Eastern Europe. According to his calculation, in 151 authors included in both editions, there are 49 English or American authors, 27 Frenchmen, 20 Germans, 15 ancient Greeks, 9 ancient Romans, 4 Russians, 4 Scandinavians, 3 Spaniards, 3 Italians, 3 Irishmen, 3 Scots, and 3 Eastern Europeans. Prejudices and preferences, he concludes, are self-evident.

In response, such criticisms have been derided as ad hominem and biased in themselves. The counter-argument 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.[16]

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.[17]

Difficulty

The scientific and mathematical selections came under criticism for being incomprehensible to the average 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.[18]

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. Dense formatting also did not help readability. Nonetheless, Encyclopædia Britannica's aggressive promotion produced solid sales.[19]

The second edition selected translations that were generally considered an improvement, though the cramped typography remained. Through reading plans and the Syntopicon, the editors attempted to guide readers through the set.[20]

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.[21]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Selecting Works for the 1990 Edition of the Great Books of the Western World" 2017-12-08 at the Wayback Machine, Dr. Mortimer Adler
  2. ^ Adler, Mortimer Jerome (1988). Reforming Education, Geraldine Van Doren, ed. (New York: MacMillan), p. xx.
  3. ^ Adler, Mortimer J. (1977). Philosopher at Large (New York: MacMillan), p. 237.
  4. ^ Adler, Mortimer J. (1977). Philosopher at Large (New York: MacMillan), pp. 244-246.
  5. ^ Adler, Mortimer (aft. 1957). "The Joy of Learning". The Radical Academy website.
  6. ^ Time, March 17, 1952
  7. ^ Milton Meyer (1993). "Robert Maynard Hutchins: A Memoir". University of California Press. Retrieved 2007-05-30. This biography of Robert M. Hutchins contains an extensive discussion of the Great Books project.
  8. ^ 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.
  9. ^ Beam, Alex (November 10, 2008). "A great idea at the time." Kirkus Reviews.
  10. ^ . Archived from the original on August 8, 2019. Retrieved June 7, 2012.
  11. ^ Venant, Elizabeth (3 December 1990). "A Curmudgeon Stands His Ground". The Los Angeles Times.
  12. ^ McDowell, Edwin (October 25, 1990). "'Great Books' Takes In Moderns and Women". The New York Times. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  13. ^ Sabrina Walters (2001-07-01). . Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 14 July 2010. Retrieved 2007-07-01.
  14. ^ Peter Temes (2001-07-03). . Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 2007-11-04. Retrieved 2007-07-11.
  15. ^ Berlau, John (August 2001). . Insight Magazine Insight on the News. 17 (32): 16. Archived from the original on 13 March 2014. Retrieved 2 December 2020. 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.'
  16. ^ Mortimer Adler (September 1997). . Great Books Index. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. 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.
  17. ^ 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.
  18. ^ Robert M. Hutchins (1952). "Chapter VI: Education for All". The Great Conversation. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. p. 44.
  19. ^ Macdonald, Dwight. "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?
  20. ^ 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.
  21. ^ Mortimer J. Adler (1990). "Section 1: The Great Books and the Great Ideas". The Great Conversation (2nd ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. p. 27. ISBN 0-85229-531-6.

External links

  • Center for the Study of the Great Ideas 2021-02-14 at the Wayback Machine 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
  • "Encyclopædia Britannica - Great Books Of The Western World". Internet Archive. (54 volumes.)

February 13, 2023
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For The Learning Channel s series about great books see Great Books TV program Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952 by Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc to present the great books in a 54 volume set The Great Books second edition The original editors had three criteria for including a book in the series drawn from Western Civilization the book must have been relevant to contemporary matters and not only important in its historical context it must be rewarding to re read repeatedly with respect to liberal education and it must be a part of the great conversation about the great ideas relevant to at least 25 of the 102 Great Ideas as identified by the editor of the series s comprehensive index what they dubbed the Syntopicon to which they belonged The books were not chosen on the basis of ethnic and cultural inclusiveness historical influence being seen as sufficient by itself to be included nor on whether the editors agreed with the views expressed by the authors 1 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 located in six new separate volumes Contents 1 History 1 1 Failure to come to terms 1 2 Eventual popular success 2 Volumes 2 1 Volume 1 2 2 Volume 2 2 3 Volume 3 2 4 Volume 4 2 5 Volume 5 2 6 Volume 6 2 7 Volume 7 2 8 Volume 8 2 9 Volume 9 2 10 Volume 10 2 11 Volume 11 2 12 Volume 12 2 13 Volume 13 2 14 Volume 14 2 15 Volume 15 2 16 Volume 16 2 17 Volume 17 2 18 Volume 18 2 19 Volume 19 2 20 Volume 20 2 21 Volume 21 2 22 Volume 22 2 23 Volume 23 2 24 Volume 24 2 25 Volume 25 2 26 Volume 26 2 27 Volume 27 2 28 Volume 28 2 29 Volume 29 2 30 Volume 30 2 31 Volume 31 2 32 Volume 32 2 33 Volume 33 2 34 Volume 34 2 35 Volume 35 2 36 Volume 36 2 37 Volume 37 2 38 Volume 38 2 39 Volume 39 2 40 Volume 40 2 41 Volume 41 2 42 Volume 42 2 43 Volume 43 2 44 Volume 44 2 45 Volume 45 2 46 Volume 46 2 47 Volume 47 2 48 Volume 48 2 49 Volume 49 2 50 Volume 50 2 51 Volume 51 2 52 Volume 52 2 53 Volume 53 2 54 Volume 54 3 Second edition 3 1 Volume 20 3 2 Volume 23 3 3 Volume 31 3 4 Volume 34 3 5 Volume 43 3 6 Volume 44 3 7 Volume 45 3 8 Volume 46 3 9 Volume 47 3 10 Volume 48 3 11 Volume 52 3 12 Volume 55 3 13 Volume 56 3 14 Volume 57 3 15 Volume 58 3 16 Volume 59 3 17 Volume 60 4 Criticisms and responses 4 1 Authors 4 2 Works 4 3 Difficulty 4 4 Rationale 4 5 Response to criticisms 5 See also 6 References 7 External linksHistory EditThe project for the Great Books of the Western World began at the University of Chicago where the president Robert Hutchins collaborated with Mortimer Adler to develop a course there of a type which had been originated by John Erskine at Columbia University in 1921 with the innovation of a round table type approach to reading and discussing great books among professors and undergraduates 2 generally aimed at businessmen The purposes they had in mind were for filling the gaps in their liberal education notably including Hutchins own self confessed gaps and 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 visited in the Great Conversation over the course of three millennia An original student of the project was William Benton later a U S senator and then chief executive officer of the Encyclopaedia Britannica publishing company who in 1943 proposed selecting the greatest books of the Western canon and that Hutchins and Adler produce unabridged editions for publication by Encyclopaedia Britannica Hutchins was at first wary of the idea fearing that commodifying the books would devalue them as cultural artifacts nevertheless he agreed to the business deal and was paid 60 000 for his work on the project Benton at first refused the deal on the basis that the set of works selected would be just that artifacts and never actually read By chance Adler was re reading a source he was using for a book he was writing at the time called How to Think about War and Peace https www goodreads com book show 169933 How to Think about War and Peace He noted to the person who had provided the book for him that while he remembered reading this book as a source for the book he was writing he had missed the instructive passage this person was pointing out to him and wondered why that had happened They realized that Adler had read the book focusing on one idea about war and peace and missed the particular significance and importance of the passage about a different subject Adler struck on the idea to accede to assume the task of producing an index for the whole set for Hutchins by means of which readers could have a sort of random access to the works with the hoped for result that they would develop a greater interest in the works themselves 3 Failure to come to terms Edit After deciding what subjects and authors to include and how to present the materials the indexing part of the project was begun with a budget of another 60 000 Adler began compiling what his group called the Greek index bearing on the works selected from ancient Greece expecting completion of the entire project within six months After two years the Greek index was declared to be a resounding failure The inferior terms under the Great Ideas across the centuries in which the Greek language works were written had shifted in their significance and the preliminary index reflected that the ideas presented not having come to terms with each other 4 During those times Adler had a flash of insight He set his group re reading each work preliminarily with a single assigned subordinate idea in mind in the form of a fairly elaborate phrase If any instances of the idea appeared they could collate them with co ordinate ideas of a similar type collected the same way use the material thus noted to better re frame the larger idea structure and then finally start re reading the work in its entirety with revised phrasing to do the complete indexing of ideas 5 Eventual popular success Edit In 1945 Adler began writing the initial forms of the essays for the Great Ideas and six years and 940 000 more later 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 United Kingdom and to Harry S Truman the incumbent U S President Adler appeared on the cover of Time magazine for a story about the set of works and its idea index and inventory of Western topics of thought at large of sorts 6 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 Encyclopaedia Britannica altered the sales strategy and sold the book set through experienced door to door encyclopaedia 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 7 8 According to Alex Beam Great Books of the Western World eventually sold a million sets 9 The Internet and the E book reader have made available some of the Great Books of the Western World in an on line format 10 Volumes EditOriginally published in 54 volumes The Great Books of the Western World covers categories including fiction history poetry natural science mathematics philosophy drama politics religion economics and ethics Hutchins wrote the first volume titled The Great Conversation as an introduction and discourse on liberal education Adler sponsored the next two volumes The Great Ideas A Syntopicon as a way of emphasizing the unity of the set and by extension of Western thought in general A team of indexers spent months compiling references to such topics as Man s freedom in relation to the will of God and The denial of void or vacuum in favor of a plenum They grouped the topics into 102 chapters for which Adler wrote the 102 introductions Four colors identify each volume by subject area Imaginative Literature Mathematics and the Natural Sciences History and Social Science and Philosophy and Theology The volumes contained the following works Volume 1 Edit The Great ConversationVolume 2 Edit 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 LoveVolume 3 Edit 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 WorldVolume 4 Edit Homer rendered into English prose by Samuel Butler The Iliad The OdysseyVolume 5 Edit Aeschylus translated into English verse by G M Cookson The Suppliant Maidens The Persians Seven Against Thebes Prometheus Bound The Oresteia Agamemnon Choephoroe The Eumenides Sophocles translated into English prose by Sir Richard C Jebb 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 The Trojan Women Ion Helen Andromache Electra Bacchantes Hecuba Heracles Mad The Phoenician Women Orestes Iphigenia in Tauris Iphigenia in Aulis Cyclops Aristophanes translated into English verse by Benjamin Bickley Rogers The Acharnians The Knights The Clouds The Wasps Peace The Birds The Frogs Lysistrata Thesmophoriazusae Ecclesiazousae PlutusVolume 6 Edit Herodotus The History translated by George Rawlinson Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War translated by Richard Crawley and revised by R Feetham Volume 7 Edit 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 Philebus Laws The Seventh Letter translated by J Harward Volume 8 Edit Aristotle Categories On Interpretation Prior Analytics Posterior Analytics Topics Sophistical Refutations Physics On the Heavens On Generation and Corruption Meteorology Metaphysics On the Soul Minor biological works On Sense and the Sensible On Memory and Reminisence On Sleep and Sleeplessness On Dreams On Prophesying by Dreams On Longevity and Shortness of Life On Youth and Old Age On Life and Death On BreathingVolume 9 Edit Aristotle 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 PoeticsVolume 10 Edit Hippocrates Works The Hippocratic Oath On Ancient Medicine On Airs Water and Places The Book of Prognostics On Regimen in Acute Diseases Of the Epidemics On Injuries of the Head On the Surgery On Fractures On the Articulations Instruments of Reduction Aphorisms The Law The Ulcer On Fistulae On Hemorrhoids On the Sacred Disease Galen On the Natural FacultiesVolume 11 Edit Euclid The Thirteen Books of Euclid s Elements 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 ArithmeticVolume 12 Edit 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 Edit Virgil translated into English verse by James Rhoades Eclogues Georgics AeneidVolume 14 Edit Plutarch The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans translated by John Dryden Volume 15 Edit P Cornelius Tacitus translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb The Annals The HistoriesVolume 16 Edit Ptolemy Almagest 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 Edit Plotinus The Six Enneads translated by Stephen MacKenna and B S Page Volume 18 Edit Augustine of Hippo The Confessions The City of God On Christian DoctrineVolume 19 Edit 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 Edit 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 Edit Dante Alighieri Divine Comedy Translated by Charles Eliot Norton Volume 22 Edit Geoffrey Chaucer Troilus and Criseyde The Canterbury TalesVolume 23 Edit Niccolo Machiavelli The Prince Thomas Hobbes LeviathanVolume 24 Edit Francois Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel but only up to book 4 Volume 25 Edit Michel Eyquem de Montaigne EssaysVolume 26 Edit 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 Two Gentlemen of Verona Love s Labour s Lost Romeo and Juliet 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 ItVolume 27 Edit William Shakespeare Twelfth Night or What You Will The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark 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 SonnetsVolume 28 Edit William Gilbert On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies Galileo Galilei Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences William Harvey On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals On the Circulation of Blood On the Generation of AnimalsVolume 29 Edit Miguel de Cervantes The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha translated by John Ormsby Volume 30 Edit Sir Francis Bacon The Advancement of Learning Novum Organum New AtlantisVolume 31 Edit Rene Descartes Rules for the Direction of the Mind Discourse on the Method Meditations on First Philosophy Objections Against the Meditations and Replies The Geometry Benedict de Spinoza EthicsVolume 32 Edit John Milton English Minor Poems On the Morning of Christ s Nativity A Paraphrase on Psalm 114 Psalm 136 The Passion On Time Upon the Circumcision At a Solemn Musick An Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester Song on May Morning On Shakespeare On the University Carrier Another on the same L Allegro Il Penseroso Arcades Lycida Comus On the Death of a Fair Infant At a Vacation Exercise The Fifth Ode of Horace Sonnets I and VII XIX On the New Forcers of Conscience On the Lord General Fairfax at the Siege of Colchester To the Lord General Cromwell To Sir Henry Vane the Younger To Mister Cyriack the Skinner upon his Blindness Psalms I VIII amp LXXX LXXXVIII Paradise Lost Samson Agonistes AreopagiticaVolume 33 Edit Blaise Pascal The Provincial Letters Pensees Scientific and mathematical essaysVolume 34 Edit Sir Isaac Newton Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy Optics Christiaan Huygens Treatise on LightVolume 35 Edit 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 UnderstandingVolume 36 Edit Jonathan Swift Gulliver s Travels Laurence Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy GentlemanVolume 37 Edit Henry Fielding The History of Tom Jones a FoundlingVolume 38 Edit Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu The Spirit of the Laws Jean Jacques Rousseau A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality A Discourse on Political Economy The Social ContractVolume 39 Edit Adam Smith An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVolume 40 Edit Edward Gibbon The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Part 1 Volume 41 Edit Edward Gibbon The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Part 2 Volume 42 Edit Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals Critique of Practical Reason Excerpts from The Metaphysics of Morals Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics with a note on Conscience General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals The Science of Right The Critique of JudgementVolume 43 Edit American State Papers Declaration of Independence Articles of Confederation The Constitution of the United States of America Alexander Hamilton James Madison John Jay The Federalist John Stuart Mill On Liberty Considerations on Representative Government UtilitarianismVolume 44 Edit James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson LL D Volume 45 Edit Antoine Laurent Lavoisier Elements of Chemistry Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier Analytical Theory of Heat Michael Faraday Experimental Researches in ElectricityVolume 46 Edit Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel The Philosophy of Right The Philosophy of HistoryVolume 47 Edit Johann Wolfgang von Goethe FaustVolume 48 Edit Herman Melville Moby Dick or The WhaleVolume 49 Edit Charles Darwin The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to SexVolume 50 Edit Karl Marx Capital Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Manifesto of the Communist PartyVolume 51 Edit Count Leo Tolstoy War and PeaceVolume 52 Edit Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky The Brothers KaramazovVolume 53 Edit William James The Principles of PsychologyVolume 54 Edit Sigmund Freud The Origin and Development of Psycho Analysis 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 On Narcissism Instincts and Their Vicissitudes Repression The Unconscious 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 Thoughts for the Times on War and Death Civilization and Its Discontents New Introductory Lectures on Psycho AnalysisSecond edition EditThe second edition of Great Books of the Western World 1990 saw an increase from 54 to 60 volumes with updated translations The six new volumes concerned the 20th century an era of which the first edition s sole representative was Freud Some of the other volumes were re arranged with even more pre 20th century material added but with four texts deleted Apollonius On Conic Sections Laurence Sterne s Tristram Shandy Henry Fielding s Tom Jones and Joseph Fourier s Analytical Theory of Heat Adler 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 Syntopicon should have included references to the Koran He addressed criticisms that the set was too heavily Western European and did not adequately represent women and minority authors 11 Four women authors were included where previously there were none 12 The added pre 20th century texts appear in these volumes some of the accompanying content of these volumes differs from the first edition volume of that number Volume 20 Edit John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion Selections Volume 23 Edit Erasmus The Praise of FollyVolume 31 Edit Moliere The School for Wives The Critique of the School for Wives Tartuffe Don Juan The Miser The Would Be Gentleman The Imaginary Invalid Jean Racine Berenice PhedreVolume 34 Edit Voltaire Candide Denis Diderot Rameau s NephewVolume 43 Edit Soren Kierkegaard Fear and Trembling Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and EvilVolume 44 Edit Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in AmericaVolume 45 Edit Honore de Balzac Cousin BetteVolume 46 Edit Jane Austen Emma George Eliot MiddlemarchVolume 47 Edit Charles Dickens Little DorritVolume 48 Edit Mark Twain Huckleberry FinnVolume 52 Edit Henrik Ibsen A Doll s House The Wild Duck Hedda Gabler The Master BuilderThe contents of the six volumes of added 20th century material Volume 55 Edit William James Pragmatism Henri Bergson An Introduction to Metaphysics John Dewey 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 ManVolume 56 Edit Henri Poincare Science and Hypothesis Max Planck Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers Alfred North Whitehead An Introduction to Mathematics Albert Einstein Relativity The Special and the General Theory Arthur Eddington The Expanding Universe Niels Bohr Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature selections Discussion with Einstein on Epistemology G H Hardy A Mathematician s Apology Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Erwin Schrodinger What Is Life Theodosius Dobzhansky Genetics and the Origin of Species C H Waddington The Nature of LifeVolume 57 Edit Thorstein Veblen The Theory of the Leisure Class R H Tawney The Acquisitive Society John Maynard Keynes The General Theory of Employment Interest and MoneyVolume 58 Edit Sir James George Frazer The Golden Bough selections Max Weber Essays in Sociology selections Johan Huizinga The Autumn of the Middle Ages Claude Levi Strauss Structural Anthropology selections Volume 59 Edit Henry James The Beast in the Jungle George Bernard Shaw Saint Joan Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness Anton Chekhov Uncle Vanya Luigi Pirandello Six Characters in Search of an Author Marcel Proust Remembrance of Things Past Swann in Love Willa Cather A Lost Lady Thomas Mann Death in Venice James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManVolume 60 Edit 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 Mother Courage and Her Children Ernest Hemingway The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber George Orwell Animal Farm Samuel Beckett Waiting for GodotCriticisms and responses EditAuthors Edit The choice of authors has come under attack with some dismissing the project as a celebration of European men ignoring contributions of women and non European authors 13 14 The criticism swelled in tandem with the feminist and civil rights movements 15 Similarly in his Europe A History Norman Davies criticizes the compilation for overrepresenting selected parts of the western world especially Britain and the U S while ignoring the other particularly Central and Eastern Europe According to his calculation in 151 authors included in both editions there are 49 English or American authors 27 Frenchmen 20 Germans 15 ancient Greeks 9 ancient Romans 4 Russians 4 Scandinavians 3 Spaniards 3 Italians 3 Irishmen 3 Scots and 3 Eastern Europeans Prejudices and preferences he concludes are self evident In response such criticisms have been derided as ad hominem and biased in themselves The counter argument 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 16 Works Edit 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 17 Difficulty Edit The scientific and mathematical selections came under criticism for being incomprehensible to the average 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 18 Rationale Edit 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 Dense formatting also did not help readability Nonetheless Encyclopaedia Britannica s aggressive promotion produced solid sales 19 The second edition selected translations that were generally considered an improvement though the cramped typography remained Through reading plans and the Syntopicon the editors attempted to guide readers through the set 20 Response to criticisms Edit 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 21 See also EditGateway to the Great Books Syntopicon Other series of classics Ancient Classics for English Readers Great Illustrated Classics Harvard Classics Loeb Classical Library Modern Library Oxford World s Classics Penguin classics several articles Sacred Books of the East Educational perennialismReferences Edit Selecting Works for the 1990 Edition of the Great Books of the Western World Archived 2017 12 08 at the Wayback Machine Dr Mortimer Adler Adler Mortimer Jerome 1988 Reforming Education Geraldine Van Doren ed New York MacMillan p xx Adler Mortimer J 1977 Philosopher at Large New York MacMillan p 237 Adler Mortimer J 1977 Philosopher at Large New York MacMillan pp 244 246 Adler Mortimer aft 1957 The Joy of Learning The Radical Academy website Time March 17 1952 Milton Meyer 1993 Robert Maynard Hutchins A Memoir University of California Press Retrieved 2007 05 30 This biography of Robert M Hutchins contains an extensive discussion of the Great Books project 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 Beam Alex November 10 2008 A great idea at the time Kirkus Reviews Great Books of the Western World eBooks Adelaide Archived from the original on August 8 2019 Retrieved June 7 2012 Venant Elizabeth 3 December 1990 A Curmudgeon Stands His Ground The Los Angeles Times McDowell Edwin October 25 1990 Great Books Takes In Moderns and Women The New York Times Retrieved October 3 2019 Sabrina Walters 2001 07 01 Great Books won Adler fame scorn Chicago Sun Times Archived from the original on 14 July 2010 Retrieved 2007 07 01 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 Berlau John August 2001 What Happened to the Great Ideas Mortimer J Adler s Great Books programs Insight Magazine Insight on the News 17 32 16 Archived from the original on 13 March 2014 Retrieved 2 December 2020 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 Mortimer Adler September 1997 Selecting works for the 1990 edition of Great Books of the Western World Great Books Index Archived from the original on 2007 09 27 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 Mortimer J Adler 1990 Bibliography of Additional Readings The Syntopicon II Great Books of the Western World vol 1 2 2nd ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc pp 909 996 ISBN 0 85229 531 6 Robert M Hutchins 1952 Chapter VI Education for All The Great Conversation Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc p 44 Macdonald Dwight 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 Mortimer J Adler 1990 The Great Conversation 2nd ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc pp 33 34 for discussion of new translations pp 74 98 for reading plans and guides ISBN 0 85229 531 6 Mortimer J Adler 1990 Section 1 The Great Books and the Great Ideas The Great Conversation 2nd ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc p 27 ISBN 0 85229 531 6 External links EditCenter for the Study of the Great Ideas Archived 2021 02 14 at the Wayback Machine 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 Encyclopaedia Britannica Great Books Of The Western World Internet Archive 54 volumes Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Great Books of the Western World amp oldid 1138033629, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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