An Incomplete Education, Revised Edition
by Judy Jones, William Wilson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Judy Jones, William WilsonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1995-10-17
ISBN: 0345391373
Number of pages: 704
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of An Incomplete Education, Revised Edition
Book Review: yes
Summary: 5 Stars
I give it five stars, as the humor helps dislodge negative thinking, emotional and knee-jerk reactions surrounding so-called "intellectual" subjects.
Incomplete is a bit of a misnomer: within its context, its relatively all-encompassing, after its fashion.
If it doesnt spontaneously slipstream an entire education into your mind, it is at least a start.
(( Becoming dogmatic, even fanatical, can be a negative side effect of a real 'Incomplete' education. To be able to negotiate ideas, transcend them, etc. is more the essence. Becoming too analytical is also not the purpose of education (educare: a leading out, not a stuffing in.) Maintaining a balance of understanding and measured humanitarianism, is. ))
Yet I'd rather someone directed such money to a copy of Benet's somewhat pricier and bigger 'Benet's reader's encyclopedia,' overall a better investment. The choice ? Its hard to say. Benet's is larger, tightly texted, and is capable of alienating those who may be more receptive to the 'Incomplete Ed'n.' Which is better to start with? The one that will not alienate from the general path of broadening one's education, is the thing to start with.
'Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia' comes much recommended. 'One read-thru can triple your general knowledge' says one Amazon reviewer. (Rather gives the lie to Benet's as a dilettante's mere reference book, or a pricey/classy crutch exclusively for English majors. See reviews.) Yet its definitions are brief. You will find yourself hunting for context with Benet's. Still useful, tho.
(If folklore is more your bent, your lit. ref. of choice may be Brewers' Dictionary, not Benet's.)
Taken all together, 'Incomplete' is also not as good as, say, the long out-of-print Harry Elmer Barnes, ' Cultural and Intellectual History of the Western World' ( 3 vol., 1300 plus pages !)or the additon of approaches I have added below. Yet, accompanied by Hirsh's ' Dictionary of Cultural Literacy' and such-like, it can constitute a good start. And better than trying to read a multi-volume encyclopedia all at once.
Take these two Ivy league liberals, and balance them with the 'right-wingers' of the 'Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.' and you will be at least assured of symbolic overall balance. They should approach a kind of introduction to what may be missing from your education.
Harry Elmer Barnes tells of how Aldous Huxley, in his essays, novels, and short stories, managed to encompass practically the entirety of world knowledge. I think anyone who has on their shelf Huxleys' 'Complete Essays' (6 volumes, sold seperate, Ivan R. Dee Publishers,) Philip Weiner's 'Dictionary of the History of Ideas' (four or five volumes,) and perhaps Harry Elmer Barnes' own 1,350-page , 3 vol effort, has a functional base for their own complete education. *** If someone knows better, won't they say it here? ***
Certainly no one should miss Aldous Huxley's small essay book, ' Brave New World Revisited,' even if all you have is a vague notion about the original fiction work.
Isaiah Berlin is generally considered one of the best authors you could read, in his many volumes, about the history of ideas.
WH Auden collection of essays, ' Forewards and Afterwords,' also ought not to be omitted from anyones autodidactic path. Many and various subjects discussed there.
Add, for only twenty dollars, Barzun's ' Dawn to Decadence.' It's worth it. I have already got more than the cover price out of this book. The abridgment of Toynbee's 'Study of History' is highly touted as 'the one book you must read, even if you never read another(I paraphrase)' by the Nation magazine. . .
Aldous Huxley, in a 1930s essay, said to read Montaigne's essays, balance it with Pascals' Pensees, and add David Hume, Spinozas' Ethics and Correspondence, and Henri Poincare's works on science philosphy, as excellent intellectual background.
More usefully than a dictionary, add a good thesaurus to read yourself to sleep on to improve the gradient pastel subtleties of your vocab., and you're on your way with a basic educational (inc. Incomplete ed'n, Hirsh dictionary) that's functionally hard to beat, for starters.
McGraw Hill's smaller 'Readers Handbook,' paper, touts itself as a must have for any shelf. Checking up on it, I agreed, and bought a copy. Until you graduate to the larger readers' handbooks ( Holman, etc.) it should stand you in good stead for awhile.
Many own several thesaurii. What a useful way to relatively quickly begin to organize words - and hence ideas - in one's eye and mind ! In fact, one useful way to begin to enrich one's education might be to carry a thesaurus around with one continually, and read it thru at various moments. Keeping eyes and ears receptive, an enriched vocab will begin to allow you to access ideas all over the place.
Any better ideas ? I'd love to know. Thats the main reason I write this review: someone speak up, and 'add to!'
Jaeger's pricey classic trilogy 'Padeia' on ancient Greek culture, might be useful to add for many folks( now out in paper, 3 vol.) in spite of its cover price. I know I have added it to my shelf !
The old standby/ introductory 'History of Western Knowledge ' by van Doren, at @ 500pp., may be useful to many.
'Passion of the Western Mind ' is a possibility, as newer than anything Durant has done since he died, and in high favor by the late Joseph Campbell. Let its latter-paged politically correct /new age 'rap' balance the perceived stodge of Barzun's effort.
Larger (800+ pp.) and now in paperback, is Peter Watson's 'From fire to freud: a history of ideas.' Seems to get good reviews here on Amazon, tho it may not substitute for , say, reading Isaiah Berlin.
From here, you might move on to Adler's Great Books Western World series and supplements (heed his fiction list,) enriching the lacunae with such as may be found in 'Dr. Eliot's five foot shelf' of Harvard Classics and Shelf of Fiction.
Yet heed what Harvard has to say on the internet, about the idea that simply reading gobs of famous ancient classics, is not their idea of a complete education. Many famous classics are very time-specific, for example. Much of their virtue is revealed by understanding their contexts, geographical and historical(ie, 'place- and time-line virtues.')
Still it wouldn't destroy you to selectively graze such texts, being careful not to: A. be overly blown away by such revelations as you may find there; B. reject a text, like Plato, just because you disagree with a few of his more extreme statements; C. neglect proper digestion of the classics by merely finding in them stuff that more or less reinforces only what you already know, and ignoring ideas that may be overall difficult to assimiliate immediately, yet be worth your reasonable long-term consideration.
Add Burtons, 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' Kant's 'Critique of pure Reason, ' Schrodingers' 'What is Life?,' Heidegger's 'Being and Time,' 'What is called Thinking?' Wittgensteins' 'Ph. Investigations,' 'Blue and Brown Notebooks,' Schwab's 'Gods and Heroes', Borges 'Dreamtigers' and such, poems of GMHopkins, Pound's 'Personae ' and 'Cantos,' TS Eliot's 'Four Quartets,' Dylan Thomas, WCWilliams 'Paterson,' and you start to profitably walk the realm of the Great Books schools. (cut 'n paste)
"Never at Rest,' a large bio of Newton, enthusiastically recommended by critics as a must-own for any educated person.
Jacques Barzun thought Wm James 'Principles of Psychology ' as a must read for 'anyone who would profess to call themselves educated'. At 1,000+ pp., it may have something to offer you.
Interspersing such readings with Philip Weiner, 'Dict. of History of Ideas,' old edition now online, may prove highly useful to many.
A purely liberal education isn't everything. I dunno about yourself, but I have decided, after some research into the vague realm of relative reliability of oft-changing science texts, to add the huge 'McGraw Hills' Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms' to my shelf. I expect grazing through its two-thousand-plus pages, to gradually brighten my receptiveness to scientific references as I encounter them in various places.
At any rate, a real mind is no joke to acquire. Sacrifices must be made, obstacles removed. Want a real education? You're on your own. Don't kid yourself, nor 'dry-rot at ease til the Judgement Day,' yet 'gather ye your stones to build your Basilica!'
To this we add two final aphorisms of education: ' Something of everything, and everything of something,' and 'Drink deep, or taste not, the Pierian spring: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing !'
Summary of An Incomplete Education, Revised Edition
"An astonishing amount of information."--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
When it was originally published in 1987, An Incomplete Education became a surprise bestseller. Now this instant classic has been completely updated, outfitted with a whole new arsenal of indispensable knowledge. Here's your chance to fill in the gaps left by your school years, reacquire all the facts you once knew then promptly forgot, and become the Renaissance man or woman you always suspected you could be!
What was so important about the Dred Scott decision? Why aren't all Shakespearean comedies necessarily thigh-slappers? What happened inside Plato's cave? What's the difference between a fade-out and a dissolve? Fission and fusion? Shi'ites and Sunnis? The apostles and the disciples? Is postmodernism dead or just having a bad hair day? And for extra credit, how do you tell deduction from induction?
An Incomplete Education answers these and thousands of other questions with incomparable wit, style, clarity, and brevity. American Studies, Art History, Economics, Film, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Science, and World History: Here's the bottom line on each of these major disciplines, distilled to its essence and served up with consummate flair.
In this new edition you'll find up-to-the-minute analyses of the geopolitical situation in Eastern Europe, Indochina, and the Horn of Africa; the latest breakthroughs in cloning and gene splicing; brand-new takes on the economy, from disinflation to global competition; a look at the recent upheavals surrounding abortion rights, free speech, and the death penalty; and much, much more.
Ponder the legacies of eight American intellectuals (a couple of whom aren't even dead yet). Get a handle on 350 years of opera; the central ideas of Freud and five of his famous followers; the meanings of eighteen inscrutable-looking adjectives, from jejune to heuristic, numinous to otiose. Bone up on entropy and evolution. Take a whirlwind tour of English poetry from Chaucer to Yeats. Learn what to look for in Rubens or Rembrandt, The Birth of a Nation or Citizen Kane.
As delightful as it is illuminating, An Incomplete Education packs ten thousand years of culture into a single superbly readable volume. This is a book to celebrate, to share, to give and receive, to pore over and browse through, and to return to again and again.
You'll find everything you forgot from school--as well as plenty you never even learned--in this all-purpose reference book, an instant classic when it first appeared in 1987. The updated version takes a whirlwind tour through 12 different disciplines, from American studies to philosophy to world history. Along the way, Judy Jones and William Wilson provide a plethora of useful information, from the plot of Othello to the difference between fission and fusion. It's not a shortcut to cultural literacy, the authors write in their introduction, but it's an excellent "way in" to the building blocks of Western civilization: the "books, music, art, philosophy, and discoveries that have, for one reason or another, managed to endure." Think of it as finishing school for your brain; study up and you'll gain a lifetime's worth of cocktail conversation--as well as a new list of books you simply must read.
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