What are Great Books?

Great books are written publications that have been accepted by modern day scholars as the
essential foundation of literature in Western culture. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines them as
certain classics of literature, philosophy, history, and science that are believed to contain the basic ideas
of western culture. Over the years it has become customary for institutes of higher education to
incorporate these readings into their curriculum. “The reason for the study of these classical texts is to
both allow and encourage students to become familiar with some of the most revered authors
throughout history. This helps to ensure that students and newly found scholars are equipped with a
plethora of resources to utilize throughout their studies.

Task 1 List down as many Great Books that you know, either you’ve read and studied them in high
school. Name the title of the book and the author.

Task 2. List down five (5) Great Books and place them in the respective category below.

ANCIENT (BEFORE A.D.) MEDIEVAL (500-1450) MODERN (AFTER AD 1450)

Note: The timeline and category is based on How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler (1940), and
How to Read a Book, 2nd ed. by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren (1972):

The great books are those that tradition, and various institutions and authorities, have regarded as
constituting or best expressing the foundations of Western culture (the Western canon is a similar but
broader designation); derivatively the term also refers to a curriculum or method of education based
around a list of such books. Mortimer Adler lists three criteria for including a book on the list:

• the book has contemporary significance; that is, it has relevance to the problems and issues of our
times;

• the book is inexhaustible; it can be read again and again with benefit; "This is an exacting
criterion, an ideal that is fully attained by only a small number of the 511 works that we selected. It is
approximated in varying degrees by the rest."[3]

• the book is relevant to a large number of the great ideas and great issues that have occupied the
minds of thinking individuals for the last 25 centuries.[4]

The following is an example list, in chronological order, compiled from How to Read a Book by
Mortimer Adler (1940), and How to Read a Book, 2nd ed. by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren
(1972):

Ancient (before AD 500) : 1 Homer – Iliad; Odyssey Ancient The Old Testament 3 Aeschylus –
Tragedies 4 Sophocles – Tragedies 5 Herodotus – Histories 6 Euripides – Tragedies 7 Thucydides –
History of the Peloponnesian War 8 Hippocrates – Medical Writings 9 Aristophanes – Comedies 10 Plato
– Dialogues 11 Aristotle – Works 12 Epicurus – "Letter to Herodotus"; "Letter to Menoecus" 13 Euclid –
Elements 14 Archimedes – Works 15 Apollonius – Conics 16 Cicero – Works (esp. Orations; On
Friendship; On Old Age; Republic; Laws; Tusculan Disputations; Offices) 17 Lucretius – On the Nature of
Things 18 Virgil – Works (esp. Aeneid) 19 Horace – Works (esp. Odes and Epodes; The Art of Poetry) 20
Livy – History of Rome 21 Ovid – Works (esp. Metamorphoses) 22 Quintilian – Institutes of Oratory 23
Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia 24 Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola; Germania; Dialogus de
oratoribus (Dialogue on Oratory) 25 Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic 26 Epictetus –
Discourses; Enchiridion 27 Ptolemy – Almagest 28 Lucian – Works (esp. The Way to Write History; The
True History; The Sale of Creeds; Alexander the Oracle Monger; Charon; The Sale of Lives; The
Fisherman; Dialogue of the Gods; Dialogues of the Sea-Gods; Dialogues of the Dead) 29 Marcus Aurelius
– Meditations 30 Galen – On the Natural Faculties 31 The New Testament 32 Plotinus – The Enneads 33
St. Augustine – "On the Teacher"; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine

Medieval (AD 500—1450) : 1 The Volsungs Saga or N4 Nicolaus Copernicus – On 2 The Song
of Roland 3 The Saga of Burnt Njál 4 Maimonides – The Guide for the Perplexed 5 St. Thomas Aquinas –
Of Being and Essence; Summa Contra Gentiles; Of the Governance of Rulers; Summa Theologica 6 Dante
Alighieri – The New Life (La Vita Nuova); "On Monarchy"; Divine Comedy 7 Giovanni Boccaccio - The
Decameron 8 Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 9 Thomas à Kempis – The
Imitation of Christ

Modern (after AD 1450) : 1 Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks 2 Niccolò Machiavelli – The

Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 3 Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly; Colloquies
4 Nicolaus Copernicus the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 5 Thomas More – Utopia 6 Martin Luther
– Table Talk; Three Treatises 7 François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel 8 John Calvin – Institutes of
the Christian Religion 9 Michel de Montaigne – Essays 10 William Gilbert – On the Lodestone and
Magnetic Bodies 11 Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote 12 Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie
Queene 13 Francis Bacon – Essays; The Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum; New Atlantis 14
William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays 15 Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Two New Sciences 16
Johannes Kepler – The Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Harmonices Mundi 17 William Harvey – On
the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; Generation of Animals 18
Grotius – The Law of War and Peace 19 Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan; Elements of Philosophy 20 René
Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on
First Philosophy; Principles of Philosophy; The Passions of the Soul 21 Corneille – Tragedies (esp. The Cid,
Cinna) 22 John Milton – Works (esp. the minor poems; Areopagitica; Paradise Lost; Samson Agonistes)
23 Molière – Comedies (esp. The Miser; The School for Wives; The Misanthrope; The Doctor in Spite of
Himself; Tartuffe; The Tradesman Turned Gentleman; The Imaginary Invalid; The Affected Ladies) 24
Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensées; Scientific Treatises 25 John Bunyan - The Pilgrim's
Progress 26 Boyle – The Sceptical Chymist 27 Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light 28 Benedict de
Spinoza – Political Treatises; Ethics 29 John Locke – A Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government;
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding; Some Thoughts Concerning Education 30 Jean Baptiste
Racine – Tragedies (esp. Andromache; Phaedra; Athalie (Athaliah)) 31 Isaac Newton – Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy; Opticks 32 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New
Essays on Human Understanding; Monadology 33 Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe; Moll Flanders 34
Jonathan Swift – The Battle of the Books; A Tale of a Tub; A Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest
Proposal 35 William Congreve – The Way of the World 36 George Berkeley – A New Theory of Vision; A
Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge 37 Alexander Pope – An Essay on Criticism; The
Rape of the Lock; An Essay on Man 38 Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters;
The Spirit of the Laws 39 Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 40 Henry
Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 41 Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary;
Rasselas; Lives of the Poets 42 David Hume – A Treatise of Human Nature; Essays Moral and Political; An
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; History of England Page 12 of 97 WMSU-ISMP-GU-005.00
Effective Date: 8-MAR-2018 43 Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Discourse on Inequality; On Political Economy;
Emile: or, On Education; The Social Contract; Confessions 44 Laurence Sterne – Tristram Shandy; A
Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy 45 Adam Smith – The Theory of Moral Sentiments; The
Wealth of Nations 46 William Blackstone – Commentaries on the Laws of England 47 Immanuel Kant –
Critique of Pure Reason; Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals; Critique of Practical Reason;
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics; The Science of Right; Critique of Judgment; Perpetual Peace 48
Edward Gibbon – The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Autobiography 49 James
Boswell – Journal; The Life of Samuel Johnson 50 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier – Traité Élémentaire de
Chimie (Elements of Chemistry) 51 Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison – Federalist
Papers (together with the Articles of Confederation; United States Constitution and United States
Declaration of Independence) 52 Jeremy Bentham – Comment on the Commentaries; Introduction to
the Principles of Morals and Legislation; Theory of Fictions 53 Johann Wolfgang Goethe – Faust; Poetry
and Truth 54 Thomas Robert Malthus – An Essay on the Principle of Population 55 John Dalton – A New
System of Chemical Philosophy 56 Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier – Analytical Theory of Heat 57 Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel – The Phenomenology of Spirit; Science of Logic; Elements of the Philosophy of
Right; Lectures on the Philosophy of History 58 William Wordsworth – Poems (esp. Lyrical Ballads; Lucy
poems; sonnets; The Prelude) 59 Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Poems (esp. Kubla Khan; The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner ); Biographia Literaria 60 David Ricardo – On the Principles of Political Economy and
Taxation 61 Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice; Emma 62 Carl von Clausewitz – On War 63 Stendhal –
The Red and the Black; The Charterhouse of Parma; On Love 64 François Guizot – History of Civilization
in France 65 Lord Byron – Don Juan 66 Arthur Schopenhauer – Studies in Pessimism 67 Michael Faraday
– The Chemical History of a Candle; Experimental Researches in Electricity 68 Nikolai Lobachevsky –
Geometrical Researches on the Theory of Parallels 69 Charles Lyell – Principles of Geology 70 Auguste
Comte – The Positive Philosophy 71 Honoré Balzac – Works (esp. Le Père Goriot; Le Cousin Pons;
Eugénie Grandet; Cousin Bette; César Birotteau) 72 Ralph Waldo Emerson – Representative Men; Essays;
Journal 73 Victor Hugo - Les Misérables 74 Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter 75 Alexis de
Tocqueville – Democracy in America 76 John Stuart Mill – A System of Logic; Principles of Political
Economy; On Liberty; Considerations on Representative Government; Utilitarianism; The Subjection of
Women; Autobiography 77 Charles Darwin – On the Origin of Species; The Descent of Man;
Autobiography 78 William Makepeace Thackeray – Works (esp. Vanity Fair; The History of Henry
Esmond; The Virginians; Pendennis) 79 Charles Dickens – Works (esp. Pickwick Papers; Our Mutual
Friend; David Copperfield; Dombey and Son; Oliver Twist; A Tale of Two Cities; Hard Times) Page 13 of
97 WMSU-ISMP-GU-005.00 Effective Date: 8-MAR-2018 80 Claude Bernard – Introduction to the Study
of Experimental Medicine 81 George Boole – The Laws of Thought 82 Henry David Thoreau – Civil
Disobedience; Walden 83 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – Das Kapital (Capital); The Communist
Manifesto 84 George Eliot – Adam Bede; Middlemarch 85 Herman Melville – Typee; Moby-Dick; Billy
Budd 86 Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Brothers Karamazov 87 Gustave
Flaubert – Madame Bovary; Three Stories 88 Henry Thomas Buckle – A History of Civilization in England
89 Francis Galton – Inquiries into Human Faculties and Its Development 90 Bernhard Riemann – The
Hypotheses of Geometry 91 Henrik Ibsen – Plays (esp. Peer Gynt; Brand; Hedda Gabler; Emperor and
Galilean; A Doll's House; The Wild Duck; The Master Builder) 92 Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace; Anna
Karenina; "What Is Art?"; Twenty-Three Tales 93 Richard Dedekind – Theory of Numbers 94 Wilhelm
Wundt – Physiological Psychology; Outline of Psychology 95 Mark Twain – The Innocents Abroad;
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court; The Mysterious Stranger
96 Henry Adams – History of the United States; Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres; The Education of Henry
Adams; Degradation of Democratic Dogma 97 Charles Peirce – Chance, Love, and Logic; Collected Papers
98 William Sumner – Folkways 99 Oliver Wendell Holmes – The Common Law; Collected Legal Papers
100 William James – The Principles of Psychology; The Varieties of Religious Experience; Pragmatism; A
Pluralistic Universe; Essays in Radical Empiricism 101 Henry James – The American; The Ambassadors
102 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche – Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Beyond Good and Evil; On the Genealogy of
Morality; The Will to Power; Twilight of the Idols; The Antichrist 103 Georg Cantor – Transfinite Numbers
104 Jules Henri Poincaré – Science and Hypothesis; Science and Method; The Foundations of Science
105 Sigmund Freud – The Interpretation of Dreams; Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality;
Introduction to Psychoanalysis; Beyond the Pleasure Principle; Group Psychology and the Analysis of the
Ego; The Ego and the Id; Civilization and Its Discontents; New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
106 George Bernard Shaw – Plays and Prefaces 107 Max Planck – Origin and Development of the
Quantum Theory; Where Is Science Going?; Scientific Autobiography 108 Henri Bergson – Time and Free
Will; Matter and Memory; Creative Evolution; The Two Sources of Morality and Religion 109 John Dewey
– How We Think; Democracy and Education; Experience and Nature; The Quest for Certainty; Logic –
The Theory of Inquiry 110 Alfred North Whitehead – A Treatise on Universal Algebra; An Introduction to
Mathematics; Science and the Modern World; Process and Reality; The Aims of Education and Other
Essays; Adventures of Ideas 111 George Santayana – The Life of Reason; Scepticism and Animal Faith;
The Realms of Being (which discusses the Realms of Essence, Matter and Truth); Persons and Places 112
Vladimir Lenin – Imperialism; The State and Revolution 113 Marcel Proust – In Search of Lost Time
(formerly translated as Remembrance of Things Past) Page 14 of 97 WMSU-ISMP-GU-005.00 Effective
Date: 8-MAR-2018 114 Bertrand Russell – Principles of Mathematics; The Problems of Philosophy;
Principia Mathematica; The Analysis of Mind; An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth; Human Knowledge, Its
Scope and Limits 115 Thomas Mann – The Magic Mountain; Joseph and His Brothers 116 Albert Einstein
– The Theory of Relativity; Sidelights on Relativity; The Meaning of Relativity; On the Method of
Theoretical Physics; The Evolution of Physics 117 James Joyce – "The Dead" in Dubliners; A Portrait of
the Artist as a Young Man; Ulysses 118 Jacques Maritain – Art and Scholasticism; The Degrees of
Knowledge; Freedom and the Modern World; A Preface to Metaphysics; The Rights of Man and Natural
Law; True Humanism 119 Franz Kafka – The Trial; The Castle 120 Arnold J. Toynbee – A Study of History;
Civilization on Trial 121 Jean-Paul Sartre – Nausea; No Exit; Being and Nothingness 122 Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn – The First Circle; Cancer Ward

After Adler retired from the Great Books Foundation in 1989, a second edition (1990) of the Great
Books of the Western World was published; it included more Hispanic and female authors and, for the
first time, works by black authors. During his tenure as president of the Foundation, Adler had resisted
such additions.
 Great Books of the Western World (2nd ed., 1990) 1 The Syntopicon: An Index to the Great
Ideas (2 volumes) Angel to Love Man to World 2 Homer Iliad Odyssey 3 Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Aristophanes Aeschylus. Plays Sophocles. Plays Euripides. Plays Aristophanes. Plays 4 Herodotus,
Thucydides Herodotus. History Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War 5 Plato Dialogues
Seventh Letter 6 Aristotle (I) Works 7 Aristotle (II) Works (continued) Page 15 of 97 WMSU-ISMP-GU-
005.00 Effective Date: 8-MAR-2018 8 Hippocrates, Galen Hippocrates. Hippocratic Writings Galen. On
the Natural Faculties 9 Euclid, Archimedes, Nicomachus Euclid. Elements Archimedes. Works (including
The Method) Nicomachus. Introduction to Arithmetic 10 Lucretius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus
Lucretius The Way Things Are Epictetus. Discourses Marcus Aurelius. The Meditations Plotinus. The Six
Enneads 11 Virgil Eclogues Georgics Aeneid 12 Plutarch Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans 13
Tacitus Annals Histories 14 Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler Ptolemy. Almagest Copernicus. On the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres Kepler. Epitome of Copernican Astronomy Kepler. The Harmonies
of the World 15 Augustine The Confessions The City of God On Christian Doctrine 16 Thomas Aquinas (I)
Summa Theologica 17 Thomas Aquinas (II) Summa Theologica (continued) 18 Dante, Chaucer Dante.
Divine Comedy Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer. Canterbury Tales 19 Calvin Institutes of the
Christian Religion Page 16 of 97 WMSU-ISMP-GU-005.00 Effective Date: 8-MAR-2018 20 Machiavelli,
Hobbes Machiavelli. The Prince Hobbes. Leviathan, or, Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth
Ecclesiastical and Civil 21 Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel 22 Erasmus, Montaigne Erasmus. Praise of
Folly Montaigne. Essays 23 Shakespeare (I) The Plays and Sonnets 24 Shakespeare (II) The Plays and
Sonnets (continued) 25 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 Harvey. On
the Circulation of the Blood Harvey. On the Generation of Animals 26 Cervantes The History of Don
Quixote de la Mancha 27 Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza Bacon. Advancement of Learning Bacon. Novum
Organum Bacon. New Atlantis Descartes. Rules for the Direction of the Mind Descartes. Discourse on the
Method Descartes. Meditations on First Philosophy Descartes. Objections Against the Meditations and
Replies Descartes. The Geometry Spinoza. Ethics 28 Milton English minor poems Paradise Lost Samson
Agonistes Areopagitica 29 Pascal The Provincial Letters Pensees Scientific Treatises 30 Moliere, Racine
Moliere. The School for Wives Page 17 of 97 WMSU-ISMP-GU-005.00 Effective Date: 8-MAR-2018
Moliere. The Critique of the School for Wives Moliere. Tartuffe Moliere. Don Juan Moliere. The Miser
Moliere. The Would-Be Gentleman Moliere. The Would-Be Invalid Racine. Berenice 31 Newton, Huygens
Newton. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy Newton. Optics Huygens. Treatise on Light 32
Locke, Berkeley Locke. A Letter Concerning Toleration Locke. Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay
Locke. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Berkeley. The Principles of Human Knowledge Hume.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 33 Swift, Voltaire, Diderot Swift. Gulliver's Travels
Voltaire. Candide Diderot. Rameau's Nephew 34 Montesquieu, Rousseau Montesquieu. The Spirit of
Laws Rousseau. On the Origin of Inequality Rousseau. On Political Economy Rousseau. The Social
Contract 35 Smith An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations 36 Gibbon (I) History
of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 37 Gibbon (II) History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire (continued) 38 Kant The Critique of Pure Reason The Critique of Practical Reason, and Other
Ethical Treatises The Critique of Judgment 39 American State Papers, The Federalist, Mill Declaration of
Independence Articles of Confederation The Constitution Hamilton, Madison, Jay. The Federalist Mill. On
Liberty Mill. Representative Government Page 18 of 97 WMSU-ISMP-GU-005.00 Effective Date: 8-MAR-
2018 Mill. Utilitarianism 40 Boswell Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D 41 Lavoisier, Faraday Lavoisier.
Elements of Chemistry Faraday. Experimental Researches in Electricity 42 Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche
Hegel. The Philosophy of Right Hegel. The Philosophy of History Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling
Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil 43 Tocqueville Democracy in America 44 Goethe, Balzac Goethe. Faust:
Parts One and Two Balzac. Cousin Bette 45 Austen, Eliot Austen. Emma Eliot. Middlemarch 46 Dickens
Little Dorrit 47 Melville, Twain Melville. Moby Dick, or, The Whale Twain. Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn 48 Darwin The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection The Descent of Man and Selection in
Relation to Sex 49 Marx, Engels Marx (edited by Engels). Capital Marx and Engels. Manifesto of the
Communist Party 50 Tolstoy War and Peace 51 Dostoyevsky, Ibsen Dostoyevsky. The Brothers
Karamazov Ibsen. A Doll's House Ibsen. The Wild Duck Ibsen. Hedda Gabler Ibsen. The Master Builder
Page 19 of 97 WMSU-ISMP-GU-005.00 Effective Date: 8-MAR-2018 52 James The Principles of
Psychology 53 Freud The Major Works of Sigmund Freud 54 20th Century Philosophy and Religion
James. Pragmatism Bergson. An Introduction to Metaphysics Dewey. Experience and Education
Whitehead. Science and the Modern World Russell. The Problems of Philosophy Heidegger. What is
Metaphysics? Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations Barth. The Word of God and the Word of Man
55 20th Century Natural Science Poincare. Science and Hypothesis Planck. Scientific Autobiography and
Other Papers Whitehead. An Introduction to Mathematics Einstein. Relativity: The Special and the
General Theory Eddington. The Expanding Universe Bohr. Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature
(selections) Bohr. Discussion with Einstein on Epistemological Problemns in Atomic Physics Hardy. A
Mathematician's Apology Heisenberg. Physics and Philosophy Schrodinger. What is Life? Dobzhansky.
Genetics and the Origin of Species Waddington. The Nature of Life 56 20th Century Social Science (I)
Veblen. The Theory of the Leisure Class Tawney. The Acquisitive Society Keynes. The General Theory of
Employment, Interest and Money 57 20th Century Social Science (II) Frazer. The Golden Bough
(selections) Weber. Essays in Sociology (selections) Huizinga. The Waning of the Middle Ages Levi-
Strauss. Structural Anthropology (selections) 58 20th Century Imaginative Literature (I) James. The Beast
in the Jungle Shaw. Saint Joan Conrad. Heart of Darkness Chekhov. Uncle Vanya Pirandello. Six
Characters in Search of an Author Proust. Remembrance of Things Past. "Swann in Love" Cather. A Lost
Lady Mann. Death in Venice Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Page 20 of 9ibelungenlied 59
20th Century Imaginative Literature (II) Woolf. To the Lighthouse Kafka. Metamorphosis Lawrence. The
Prussian Officer Eliot. The Waste Land O'Neill. Mourning Becomes Electra Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby
Faulkner. A Rose for Emily Brecht. Mother Courage and Her Children Hemingway. The Short Happy Life
of Macomber Orwell. Animal Farm Beckett. Waiting for Godot

Origin
Thomas Jefferson, well known for his interest in higher education, frequently composed great books
lists for his friends and correspondents, for example, for Peter Carr in 1785 and again in 1787. In 1909,
Harvard University published a 51-volume Great Books series, titled the Harvard Classics. These volumes
are now in the public domain. The Great Books of the Western World came about as the result of a
discussion among American academics and educators, starting in the 1920s and 1930s and begun by
Prof. John Erskine of Columbia University, about how to improve the higher education system by
returning it to the western liberal arts tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning. These academics
and educators included Robert Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, Stringfellow Barr, Scott Buchanan, Jacques
Barzun, and Alexander Meiklejohn. The view among them was that the emphasis on narrow
specialization in American colleges had harmed the quality of higher education by failing to expose
students to the important products of Western civilization and thought. Controversy on the selection of
Great Books In contemporary scholarship, the Great Books curriculum was drawn into the popullar
debate about multiculturalism, traditional education, the "culture war," and the role of the intellectual
in American life. Many had issue with the lack of culture added to this list in both the first and second
editions due to its lack of diversity in ethnic origin, as many Hispanic and African American documents
were overlooked because they did not meet the ideals, of the Great ideas that the chosen texts had to
meet a total of 25 of at the least, to be considered as Great books. Much of this debate centered on
reactions to the publication of The Closing of the American Mind in 1987 by Allan Bloom. In his book,
Allan Bloom suggested that the shortcomings of teaching the methods of the Great books is that it
focuses primarily on historical reading without allowing for point of view of the reader in today’s day in
age. He argued that this limited the ability for our knowledge to grow, given that no perspective was
given in regards to the advancement of civilization past the date of these books. Bloom (1987) critiques
the contemporary American university and how he sees it as failing its students, criticizing modern
movements in philosophy and the humanities. Throughout the book, he attacks the "moral relativism"
that he claims has taken over American universities for the barrier it constructs to the notions of truth,
critical thinking, and genuine knowledge. Bloom claims that students in the 1980s have prioritized the
immediate, blind relegation of prejudice as inferiority of thought, and therefore have "closed" their
minds, as the title suggests, to asking the right questions, so that prejudice may be eradicated through
logic and critical thinking, as opposed to empty, baseless instinct. On Selecting Works for the 1990
Edition of the great Books of the Western World In September 1997, Mortimer J. Adler posted the
following note to the Western Canon Mailing List regarding the criteria of selection for the 1990 edition
of the great books of the Western world. Below are the lists of criteria that Adler identified. What were
those three criteria of selection? The first was the book's contemporary significance -- relevance to the
problems and issues of the twentieth century. The books were not to be regarded as archaeological
relics -- monuments in our intellectual tradition. They should be works that are as much of concern to us
today as at the time they were written, even if that was centuries ago. They are thus essentially timeless
-- always contemporary, and not confined to interests that change from time to time or from place to
place. The second criterion was their infinite rereadability or, in the case of the more difficult
mathematical and scientific works, their studiability again and again. Most of the 400,000 books
published each year are not worth carefully reading even once; many fewer than 1,000 each year are
worth reading more than once. When, infrequently in any century, a great book does appear, it is a book
worth reading again and again and again. It is inexhaustibly rereadable. It cannot be fully understood on
one, two, or three readings. More is to be found on all subsequent readings. This is an exacting criterion,
an ideal that is fully attained by only a small number of the 511 works that we selected. It is
approximated in varying degrees by the rest. The third criterion was the relevance of the work to a very
large number of great ideas and great issues that have occupied the minds of thinking individuals for the
last twenty-five centuries. The authors of these books take part in the great conversation, not only by
reading the works of many of their predecessors, but also by discussing many of the 102 great ideas
treated in the "Syntopicon". In other words, the great books are the books in which the great
conversation occurs about the great ideas. It is the set of great ideas that determines the choice of the
great books. (Adler, 1997)

TASK 3
1. What Great Books have caught your attention?
2. Imagine that you have the opportunity to choose your 10 Great Books from the 21st Century
and place it in a time capsule that will be opened several centuries from now. Write a short
description of each book .

3. Discuss values and ideas from the great books that you have selected .