Posted on 03/30/2021 8:03:25 AM PDT by Sparky1776
In an attempt to fill the gaps of my public school education I've started to read, slowly, the Harvard Classics first printed in 1909 and 1910. It's a collection of classic books in 50 volumes with an additional 20 volumes first printed in 1917. My collection is incomplete with 24 random volumes of the first 50.
“My aim was not to select the best fifty, or best hundred, books in the world, but to give, in twenty-three thousand pages or thereabouts, a picture of the progress of the human race within historical times, so far as that progress can be depicted in books. The purpose of The Harvard Classics is, therefore, one different from that of collections in which the editor’s aim has been to select a number of best books; it is nothing less than the purpose to present so ample and characteristic a record of the stream of the world’s thought that the observant reader’s mind shall be enriched, refined and fertilized.” – Charles W Eliot
I once owned a set of Harvard Classics.
Like many others, I’ve recently reread 1984.
To alter history such that it was consistent with the interests of the Inner Party and Big Brother, outer party members diligently edited, and by hand on paper, changed history. No one could discern truth from falsehood. It was personally dangerous to challenge whatever the inner Party determined to be the truth.
Where outer Party workerbees discarded uncomfortable events down the Memory Hole, NPR, the cable outlets and the alphabets have a much easier time in the digital age; they simply don’t report or distort events to suit the democrat party.
We are in such dangerous waters.
Yes, by all means, save your books.
Down the street from where I lived in college was a used book store. I started buying the Harcard Classics.
After a while I noticed those I wanted were gone.
I had about 10 or 12. Others were also buying them.
Author Christopher Beha took this same journey back in 2009 in his book “The Whole Five Feet”.
“Make your own and don’t follow them.”
Not a bad idea, that said this collection was assembled pre-WWI and is pretty comprehensive imo. I think it is a good foundation to add onto to.
The entire set for $1.99 or just a volume at a time, either way a bargain.
Ditto on the Amazon Kindle full version...have downloaded it to my droid phone for reading in doctor’s waiting rooms...
LOL, was never in the Navy but I was in the AF, wished a read a little more in my younger days. After I got out I became an apprentice electrician, then licensed, really enjoyed the first volume with Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography concerning his apprenticeship and business practices. Wished I read it while working for others and starting my on business back in the day.
Hoping to add on to my partial collection, quite a few partial sets on E-bay.
“I had about 10 or 12. Others were also buying them.”
The partial set I have is from the 62nd printing in 1969, would love to find the remaining volumes from the same period.
“As he passes from St. Augustine’s Confessions to Don Quixote, from Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast to essays by Cicero, Emerson, and Thoreau, he (Christopher Beha) takes solace in the realization that many of the authors are grappling with the same questions he faces: What is the purpose of life? How do we live a good life? What can the wisdom of the past teach us about our own challenges?”
Some things never change.
Air Force and navy have the best tech schools in the world. Plus, as the joke goes, the military is how Americans learn geography. :)
It’s true, travelled a lot while I was in, was stationed in 5 states and South Korea, TDY to Australia. I was lucky enough to attend one of the USAF’s best schools - The Electronic Warfare School @ Keesler and it’s NCO Leadership School @ Nellis. Didn’t receive a degree but had enough technical for one, just light on the general classes, hence the classics.
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