Great Books of the Western World (54 Volume Set) [Hardcover]

Robert Maynard Hutchins (Editor)

Book Description

| Publication Date: 1952 | Edition: 1ST

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inhc.; 1ST edition (1952)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000NWXN5E
• Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 17.2 x 13.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 88.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The core of the western canon, November 13, 2009

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Great Books of the Western World (54 Volume Set) (Hardcover)

This was the finest single set of books that I ever owned. They are the core of a true university education in themselves. Whether you use them for occasional reference, or as a systematic system of home education, they are well worth the price. You will be drawn back to them again and again over the years.


Britannica's Great Books 54 volume set (complete)
Chicago, Encyclopedia Britannica;

The 54 volumes are:
1) The Great Conversation;
2) The Great Ideas I;
3) The Great Ideas II;
4) Homer;
5) Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes;
6) Herodotus, Thucydides;
7) Plato;
8 & 9) Aristotle I & II;
10) Hippocrates, Galen;
11) Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Nicomachus;
12) Lucretius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius;
13) Virgil;
14) Plutarch;
15) Tacitus;
16) Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler;
17) Plotinus;
18) Augustine;
19-20) Thomas Aquinas I/II;
21) Dante;
22) Chaucer;
23) Machiavelli, Hobbes;
24) Rabelais;
25) Montaigne;
26 & 27) Shakespeare;
28) Gilbert, Galileo, Harvey;
29) Cervantes;
30) Francis Bacon;
31) Descartes, Spinoza;
32) Milton;
33) Pascal;
34) Newton, Huygens;
35) Locke, Berkeley, Hume;
36) Swift, Sterne; 37) Fielding;
38) Montesquieu, Rousseau;
39) Adam Smith;
40 & 41) Gibbon I & II;
42) Kant;
43) American State Papers, The Federalist, JS Mill;
44) Boswell;
45) Lavoisier, Fourier, Faraday;
46) Hegel;
47) Goethe;
48) Melville;
49) Darwin;
50) Marx, Engels;
51) Tolstoy;
52) Dostoevsky;
53) William James;
54) Freud.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Books, May 4, 2010

By 

J. T. Lee "Student of the Classics" (Colorado Springs, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Great Books of the Western World (54 Volume Set) (Hardcover)

The Great Books of the Western World are the birthright of each member of western civilization. These are the source material for most of the structure of our modern society. Read them.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Resource for the Intelligent Reader, March 26, 2011

By 

Osmun R. Latrobe (Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Great Books of the Western World (54 Volume Set) (Hardcover)

Perhaps these books should have been entitled Great Thoughts of The Western World. These books comprise the writings of the most influential minds from the about the second century B.C. to the mid 20th century. Even if you don't set out to read the set from beginning to end (and you likely won't), it serves as a great resource of these works. Many times I find myself reading another book and coming across a reference to an idea from an early writer. Wanting to know more of his thought, his work is generally among these. Having them collected in a series is an excellent means of having the references right at hand. The University of Chicago did an invaluable service to Mankind in compiling and printing these books. Every serious student of thought will benefit from having this collection.

I am generally not a fan of collections of similarly bound books on intellectual subjects that are for appearance and never read. Hopefully, these will be more than that to you. If you are concerned that your friends may think you are elitist or a mere poseur, hide them in the closet and read them privately.

Not to be forgotten is the amazingly well written two volume Syntopicon, which is a collection of essays categorized by ideas. These are very valid studies of the ideas themselves with references to the various works in which the subject is addressed. A wonder resource in and of itself.