Great Books Question?

Your list of the Greatest Books has some really good books on it but, alas, no history books.

 

Great minds think alike.
Fools seldom differ. :smile:

J.

 

Johann: "Great minds think alike..."

There's a retired professor in my gym class whose tee shirt reads, "Great minds like a think."

 

Guess it's about time to look up the Harvard Classics.

 

Well, the Harvard Classics seems to be all books of literature, and no history books. But many of the books of literature are oriented to history and politics. Looks like a good used set of the Harvard Classics will set one back about $300. But first I have got to figure out how to get a set of Great Books 2nd edition which will set one bacvk about $600. I'll probably get my 2nd edn of the Great Books one volume at a time.

 

What was the name of that small liberal arts college that specialized in offering a 1636 vintage Harvard education? We once had a thread about that school.

 

Shouldn't these possibly be available by scouring thrift shops, etc. Ted? I think that's how Jennifer (wrote in another thread that she) got her Great Books set for $20 - and I got the 10-vol. Gateway set for about $7. I've actually seen the Harvard set for sale that way, but not in some time.

Great stuff there for book-lovers, beside books. The other day I bought something I've been seeking for over 35 years - 24 wooden spindles to match the ones I have, to make more bookshelves. They quit making these around 1980; I bought my first set in 1968, two more sets in 1978 and have been looking for more ever since.

BTW - I'm still looking for the college offering 1636 Harvard education. will keep on trying.

J.

 

Ted. Hold on to your wallet! The Harvard Collection (51 vols.) is available as a free and presumably legal download on the Internet - from OpenCulture, a well-known free learning site:

The Harvard Classics: Download All 51 Volumes as Free eBooks | Open Culture

J.

 

Yep - downloading these has gotta be legal, partly due to the age of the works in question -and the pub. date of the set is also very old. Another link for free Harvard Classics downloads:

Free Volume Downloads - My Harvard Classics

J.

 

C'mon Ted! What about Tacitus and Herodotus? Weren't they historians? They're in there!

J.

 

Hello, Dr. Huizinga! In the course of my job duties at the local Goodwill, I once noticed that someone had donated an almost complete collection of the Great Books 1st edn and my friend who was sorting books that day was going to throw it in the gaylord (which would have meant that it would be sold as recycled paper). The reason my friend wanted to throw it in the gaylord was because it said Encyclopedia Britannica on it and we were instructed to toss encyclopedias (and a few other categories of books) into the gaylord. I explained to my friend and the two ecommerce managers that the Great Books was a very prestigious set of books that could be sold for $300 if it were a complete set. The three missing volumes were Plato's Republic, Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. , and Tacitus' Annals and Histories of Rome. As it would just so happen, sometime in the early 1990s, my father offered me that if I were to quit smoking for some pre-agreed upon amount of time that he would get me anything I wanted up to $300. I was living in the Greater Seattle area from 1986 til 2001 and became very familiar with all 55 used bookstores in the Greater Seattle area. And I knew that O'Leary's Bookstore on the Southwest side of Tacoma had a set of Great Books 1st edn for $300. So I donateed to Goodwill the three missing volumes (which I was able to replace my three missing ... er, donated ... volumes very quickly). I have seen the Great Books 2nd edn new on Amazon.com for $600. So far I have three volumes of the Great Books 2nd edn. They are Johan Huizinga's The Waning of the Middle Ages (an history book that is in the 2nd edn but not in the 1st edition), Alexis Tocqueville's Democracy in America (a political theory book in the 2nd edn but not in the 1st edn), and John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (a philosophy/religion book in the 2nd edn but not in the 1st edn). So, now I have 57 more volumes of the 2nd edn to acquire one volume at a time. Hopefully I will have a complete set of the Great Books 2nd edn before the Great Books 3rd edn comes out ... if I live long enough to see that. So, one can find Great Books sets at thrift shops (by the way some guy named Mackelmore has a really totally cool karaoke tune called Thrift Shop ... "I'm gonna pop some tags, I've got $20 in my pockets. I wear your granddad's clothes, I look incredible!") and at used bookstores and on Amazon.com, Earth's biggest bookstore.

 

I'll have to go back to that Wikipedia article on the Harvard Classics. And yes, Dr. Huizinga, Herodotus wrote The Histories of the Persian Wars and Tacitus wrote The Annals and Histories of Rome. Good eye!

 

You're talkin' my language, Ted! Best recent clothes find: $2 (sale day) at Salvation Army bought me a Canali (Italian made) sportscoat, with a Harry Rosen label inside (Toronto). New condition. I looked on the Harry Rosen site when I got home - Canali jackets are $1,500 to $1,800 Cdn. new, there. Wore mine yesterday with my favourite tie - I have 55 or 60 ties. This one was bought from Goodwill in 1994, for 10 cents. Yeah -- great combo - folks were noticin' and talkin' :smile:

Over a couple of months, I passed on a couple of great Stanley Blacker jackets that didn't fit quite right and bought three Harris Tweeds, new or like-new that did.

J.

 

Yes - I got to read a bit of both these authors in school, about 57-58 years back. Both in Latin class. Herodotus wrote in Greek, of course, but we worked from a Latin translation; we learned that Romans revered Herodotus both as the "Father of History" and sometimes as "the Father of Lies." :smile:

I ran into Tacitus again in a German Lit. course, a bit later - a modern German translation of his (Latin) account of what is now Germany - de origine et situ Germanorum.

J.

 

Yes, jndeed! Thrift shops! Not only do I workt Goodwill, but my poor dear sainted septugenarian mother likes shopping at Goodwill. When my mother shops at Goodwill she often takes me along with. On our last Goodwill outing, my mother scored some good deals on some clothes for herself, me, and her grandaughter and also my mother asked me to go over to the used book section and find a book for her by some female author who writes fiction books set in the Seattle area and she authorized me to put one history book in the cart, which she would pay for. My most recvent history book bought at the Goodwill was a book about the life of J. Pierpont Morgan and at a d*** good price!

 

Yes, I onvce had a politicakl theory professor Paul A. Lowdenslager of Western State College of Colorado aka Western State Colorado University who once referred to Herodotus as a "garrolous gossip" as compared to Thucydides, who is sometimes known as the father of modern history. Tacitus, in addition to the Annals and the Histories, also wrote the Germania (an ethnographic study of the "barbarian" Germans who eventually tore down the Roman Empire) and the Agricola (a biography of his father-in-law who was a Roman general). Come to think of it, Tacitus was a Roman general who fought in the war against Boudicea, the Queen of the Britons. Come to think of it, Thucydides had been a Greek general before he became the historian of the Peloponesian Wars.

 

Yes. Many modern generals who have made / influenced history have also been writers - e.g. Eisenhower, Patton, Schwarzkopf... Sections of the Germania were my introduction to Tacitus. IIRC, he praised the people for their morality/monogamy, probably the exact opposite of what he saw in Rome, and threw in some comments about laziness and proclivities towards drunkenness and gambling.

Tacitus never travelled to German lands himself, so it's all second-hand at best. Some scholars think he may have copied from Pliny the Elder's lost Bella Germaniae, and have identified several other sources.

J.

 

By the way, I'm still working on finding that college offering 1636 Harvard curriculum. No luck yet.

Me: "I'd like to start the Harvard curriculum course. Do you offer 1636 pricing?

College: "We sure do!"

Me: "Then I'll pay for the whole program in advance!"

College: OK. That's $1636 x 120 credits. That'll be $196,320, please.

:smile:

J.

 

Wow! This post actually finally went through? After three tries?

 

Actually, it might have been a Harvard 1646 curriculum. For some reason I keep getting the idea that they were located somewhere in the Great Northwest.