What are the Great Books?

Known as a collection the greatest written works of the West, this 54-volume set is titled, The Great Books of the Western World covers categories including fiction, history, poetry, natural science, mathematics, philosophy, drama, politics, religion, economics, and ethics. The first volume, titled The Great Conversation, is an introduction and discourse on liberal education. The next two volumes, "The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon,” serve to unify the collection as a cross-reference guide to the balance of the set, and by extension, 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.

The Story of the Great Books of the Western World:

1. •  8 years in development
   

2. •  21 different styles and sizes of type for optical variety
   

3. •  54 Volumes
   

4. •  74 Authors
   

5. •  443 Works
   

6. •  3000 Years of continuous thought
   

7. •  30,000 pages plus
   

8. •  163,000 references to ideas or topics
   

9. •  400,000 man-hours of intense study to find every reference to each topic,
   

   every answer to each question

1. •  $1,000,000 to produce
   

2. •  25,000,000 words, plus
   

Matthew Arnold called the Great Books, or the classics, "the best that has been thought and known in the world." Ezra Pound called them "news that stays news." These are the books that continue to be read in times, places, and cultures far removed from those in which they were written.

The Volumes of the Great Books

1. The Great Conversation

2.  The Syntopicon: An Index to the Great Ideas
     Angel to Love

3. The Syntopicon (continued)
    Man to World

4. Homer
    Iliad
    Odyssey

5. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes
    Aeschylus. Plays
    Sophocles. Plays
    Euripides. Plays
    Aristophanes. Plays

6. Herodotus, Thucydides
    Herodotus/History
    Thucydides/The History of the Peloponnesian War

7. Plato
    Dialogues

    The Republic

    Laws
    Seventh Letter

8. Aristotle (I)

    Logic

    Physical Treaties

    Metaphysics

    On the Soul

    Short Physical Treaties

   

9. Aristotle (II)

    Biological Treaties

    Nicomachean Ethics

    Politics

    The Athenian Constitution

    Rhetoric

    On Poetics

10. Hippocrates, Galen
      Hippocrates. Hippocratic Writings
      Galen. On the Natural Faculties

11. Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Nicomachus
      Euclid/Elements
      Archimedes/Works (including The Method)

      Apollonius/Conics
      Nicomachus/Introduction to Arithmetic

12. Lucretius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius
      Lucretius/On the Nature of Things
      Epictetus/Discourses
      Marcus Aurelius/The Meditations
 

13. Virgil
      Eclogues
      Georgics
      Aeneid

14. Plutarch
      Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

15. Tacitus
      Annals
      Histories

16. Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler
      Ptolemy. Almagest
      Copernicus. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
      Kepler. Epitome of Copernican Astronomy, The Harmonies of the World

17. Plotinus 

      The Six Enneads

18. Augustine
      The Confessions
      The City of God
      On Christian Doctrine

19. Thomas Aquinas (I)
      Summa Theologica

20. Thomas Aquinas (II)
      Summa Theologica (continued)

21.  Dante
       Divine Comedy

22. Chaucer
      Troilus and Criseyde
      Canterbury Tales

23. Machiavelli, Hobbbes

      Machiavelli/The Prince
      Hobbes/Leviathan, or, Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth             

      Ecclesiastical and Civil

24. Rabelais
      Gargantua and Pantagruel

25. Montaigne
      Essays

26. Shakespeare (I)
      The Plays and Sonnets

27. Shakespeare (II)
      The Plays and Sonnets (continued)

28. Gilbert, Galileo, Harvey
      Gilbert/On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
      Galileo/Concerning the Two New Sciences
      Harvey/On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals, On the             

            Circulation of the Blood and Animal Generation

29. Cervantes
      The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha

30. Bacon
      Advancement of Learning
      Novum Organum
      New Atlantis

31. Descartes, Spinoza
Descartes/Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Discourse on the Method
Meditations on First Philosophy, Objections Against the Meditations and             

      Replies and The Geometry
      Spinoza/Ethics

32. Milton
      English minor poems
      Paradise Lost
      Samson Agonistes
      Areopagitica

33. Pascal
      The Provincial Letters
      Pensees
      Scientific Treatises

34. Newton, Huygens
      Newton/Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and Optics
      Huygens/Treatise on Light

35. Locke, Berkeley, Hume
      Locke/A Letter Concerning Toleration, Concerning Civil Government, Second    

      Essay and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
      Berkeley/The Principles of Human Knowledge
      Hume/An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

36. Swift, Sterne
      Swift/Gulliver's Travels
      Sterne/Tristram Shandy

37. Fielding

      The History of Tom Jones

38. Montesquieu, Rousseau
      Montesquieu/The Spirit of Laws
      Rousseau/On the Origin of Inequality, On Political Economy and The Social     

      Contract

39. Smith
      An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

40. Gibbon (I)

      History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

41. Gibbon (II)
      History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (continued)

42. Kant

      The Critique of Pure Reason

      The Critique of Practical Reason and Other Ethical Treatises

      The Critique of Judgment

43. American State Papers, The Federalist, Mill
      Declaration of Independence
      Articles of Confederation
      The Constitution
      Hamilton, Madison, Jay/The Federalist
      Mill/On Liberty, Representative Government andUtilitarianism

44. Boswell
      Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.

45. Lavoisier, Fourier, Faraday
      Lavoisier/Elements of Chemistry

      Fourier/Analytical of Heat
      Faraday/Experimental Researches in Electricity

46. Hegel

      The Philosophy of Right and The Philosophy of History

47. Goethe,
      Faust: Parts One and Two

48. Melville

      Moby Dick

49. Darwin
      The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
      The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

50. Marx
      Capital (edited by Engels)
      Manifesto of the Communist Party

51. Tolstoy
      War and Peace

52. Dostoyevsky
      The Brothers Karamazov

53. James
      The Principles of Psychology

54. Freud
      The Major Works of Sigmund Freud

What can I expect if I enroll?

Our students tell us that although there is a slight sense of urgency, if they start the readings on time (even early) and keep to a regular schedule (an hour or so a day), they have no problem keeping up for the short period of 3 weeks.  

It is as simple as completing the assigned readings (usually 150 pages for the whole 3-week period, writing down questions or comments along the way), participating in the discussions (everyone enjoys that--a lot) via webinar and sending the mentor some kind of written summary of your thoughts from the readings or life in general. 

Since there are no grades, no transcripts and not report cards, it is just you reading, recording your thoughts (and a lot of interact with the mentor if you choose) and engaging in lively discussion over the internet.

Students find the discussions that result from a study of the Great Books are stimulating and have huge application today in spite of the antiquity of the writings.