Best...book...evar !
<div class="IPBDescription">Great Reference Book</div> <a href='http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345391373/qid=1072158527//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/103-1320585-6664604?v=glance&s=books&n=507846' target='_blank'>An Incomplete Education (Revised Edition)</a>
Seriously, it covers a variety of subjects and is by far the most interesting reference book I have read. It pretty much provides a synopsis on a wide range of things.
It's an easy read and it's damn interesting.
"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."
Right now I'm skipping around just getting the general flow of the book, but I certainly enjoy it. I know it's a little late into the Christmas season, but you can still ask for it !
Seriously, it covers a variety of subjects and is by far the most interesting reference book I have read. It pretty much provides a synopsis on a wide range of things.
It's an easy read and it's damn interesting.
"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."
Right now I'm skipping around just getting the general flow of the book, but I certainly enjoy it. I know it's a little late into the Christmas season, but you can still ask for it !
Comments
Twilight Zone.
Dred Scott was the <i>slave</i>, not the "racist dude". That post right there is a prime example of why people would want to know "stuff like that", so they don't look ignorant. Or downright disrespectful for that matter.
Dred Scott was the <i>slave</i>, not the "racist dude". That post right there is a prime example of why people would want to know "stuff like that", so they don't look ignorant. Or downright disrespectful for that matter. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Close enough, considering I learned that in the most boring 8th grade class ever....which was a couple years back.
:P
"The famous allegory with which Plato, using Socrates as his mouthpiece, tries to explain the nature of human knowledge. Picture, says Socrates, a bunch of people who’ve spent their whole lives chained up in an underground den, unable to turn around. Behind them a fire is blazing, but all they can see are their own shadows on the wall of the cave in front of them. Never having seen anything else, they naturally mistake these shadows for reality. In the same way, the rest of us mistake the world as we know it for the real world, whereas the objects, and even the qualities, of this world are only shadows of the pure forms that exist in the realm of ideas. Now, what does this mean for you? It means, for example, that somewhere above us in that realm of forms and ideas, there is one, and only one, perfect automobile, of which the lemon you’ve been driving is merely a crude imitation. By training your mind to contemplate the idea of the perfect driving machine rather than the expensive heap of scrap metal in your driveway, you can struggle up out of the cave into the sunlight where you’ll see the car with utter clarity."
By the way, the Dred Scott decision was over the basis over whether a slave was free if he entered a free state. The question was left up to the supreme court, they ruled that a slave was not free once they entered a free state, on the basis that they were property.