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An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't
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MSRP: $35.00
Your Price: $23.10
Savings: $ 11.90 ( 34% )
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Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
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Additional An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't Information
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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 on global affairs, popular culture, economic trends, scientific principles, and modern arts. Here’s your chance to brush up on all those subjects you slept through in school, reacquaint yourself with all the facts you once knew (then promptly forgot), catch up on major developments in the world today, and become the Renaissance man or woman you always knew you could be!
How do you tell the Balkans from the Caucasus? What’s the difference between fission and fusion? Whigs and Tories? Shiites and Sunnis? Deduction and induction? Why aren’t all Shakespearean comedies necessarily thigh-slappers? What are transcendental numbers and what are they good for? What really happened in Plato’s cave? Is postmodernism dead or just having a bad hair day? And for extra credit, when should you use the adjective continual and when should you use continuous?
An Incomplete Education answers these and thousands of other questions with incomparable wit, style, and clarity. 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 revised edition you’ll find a vitally expanded treatment of international issues, reflecting the seismic geopolitical upheavals of the past decade, from economic free-fall in South America to Central Africa’s world war, and from violent radicalization in the Muslim world to the crucial trade agreements that are defining globalization for the twenty-first century. And don’t forget to read the section A Nervous American’s Guide to Living and Loving on Five Continents before you answer a personal ad in the International Herald Tribune.
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.
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What Customers Say About An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't:
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a fun way to review &/or fill in gaps in a basic set of knowledge with lots of imbedded pictures. this means you have to hit next-page a lot. 2-stars for the kindle version.
then i noted that the space-wasting two column approach of titles/heading in one column & narrative in second column has a second penalty in kindle. beyond the scope of the sample, i ran into a listing that actually had the right edge of text (4-5 characters) chopped off, even on the DX turned sideways (landscape).my experience of amazon as an amazing customer service company continued as they gave me an uncomplicated & swift refund. the width sets vary & some columns exhibit only 2-3 words per line of substantive text hugging the right edge with lots of blank space to the left.
4.5-stars for the book. in the sample i was already a little put off by just the table of contents, which is literally in a table mode, which you need to first enter as a table, & then select the section you want to go to. i find them to be very responsive to critique & they may fix these problems thereby making my review obsolete.
i had purchased the first version in hardback & loved it. the fairly consistent pro/con or HS-vs-college expectations per listing can get a little tired.i thought it would be a good addition to my kindle library particularly since it said it was optimized for DX.
Table of Contents is not searchable; you cannot navigate to a specific chapter heading - in a reference book. I would recommend it for print-on-paper reference reading, but not for Kindle users. Don't buy for Kindle. Previous favorable reviews were obviously referring to the hardcopy versions. How do I get a refund. Probably a great read or reference in hard copy, but the chart format for some topics are not fully displayed on the Kindle screen. You cannot see the entire entry for some subjects in a section.
I highly recommend this volume of over three thousand answers to trivia,substance and reference materials We are never so dumb as when we think we "know it all". The "magic" still works 20 years later. My friend "called me" to rave about the "gift that keeps giving". Once in a while we get a little smug. [.]. For example in my edition I just randomly flipped open to page 251 to find a Greek Literature Discussion of the The Iliad and the Odyssey,on page 318 a synopsis of Schopenhauer's take on Philosophy,on page 560 the life and loves of Louis XIV, and on and on. We think we know all there is to know about all there is to know.My Daughter bought a copy of AN INCOMPLETE EDUCATION about 20 Years ago and I never have read it "page to page".But anytime I open the cover I learn something in spite of my Dummy mentality. These random examples in and of themselves may not be your idea of an "Education" but it showed me how much I had either "forgotten" or just never knew.I recently purchased a "newer" edition and sent to a good friend.
However, it is an easy read because subjects can be covered in one page. There are 678 pages of subjects. Just open to any page and read for 15 minutes and put it down if you desire. Jones and Wilson cover almost every possible subject. The book appears intimidating in size and scope.
Maybe corrections were made in later editions, but I wouldn't count on it. It might seem trivial to some, but if you want to write a book purporting to illuminate such topics, you better be up to the task, especially when your style is on the snide and cynical side. Certainly a better read for this purpose is "A History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future" by Charles Van Doren, which Amazon also stocks. I was highly disappointed with the first edition - glaring omissions and inaccuracies abound. For example: Gerard Manley Hopkins is not even mentioned in the section concerning the British poets and in the chapter on religion, the authors make the boorish mistake of confusing the doctrine of the "Immaculate Conception" with that of the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ.
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