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The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books
by Alex Beam
Today the classics of the western canon, written by the proverbial “dead white men,” are cannon fodder in the culture wars. But in the 1950s and 1960s, they were a pop culture phenomenon. The Great Books of Western Civilization, fifty-four volumes chosen by intellectuals at the University of Chicago, began as an educational movement, and evolved into a successful marketing idea. Why did a million American households buy books by Hippocrates and Nicomachus from door-to-door salesmen? And how and why did the great books fall out of fashion?
In A Great Idea at the Time Alex Beam explores the Great Books mania, in an entertaining and strangely poignant portrait of American popular culture on the threshold of the television age. Populated with memorable characters, A Great Idea at the Time will leave readers asking themselves: Have I read Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura lately? If not, why not?
"By lauding the intent and intelligently critiquing the outcome, Beam offers an insightful, accessible and fair narrative on the Great Books, its time, and its surprisingly significant legacy." - Publishers Weekly.
"Starred Review. A witty look at the publishing program that aimed to bring high culture to the masses…or at least the aspiring middle class." - Kirkus Reviews.
"What if all you needed to know could be gleaned from a select number of books? That was the idea behind the Great Books of the Western World project launched in 1952 by the University of Chicago and the Encyclopedia Britannica. No mind that you'd attempted Aeschylus in a freshman seminar and found it musty. All it needed was a snazzy binding and poof - education for the masses. Or at least something to fill up those capacious bookshelves in the den. Alex Beam's "A Great Idea at the Time" looks at the postwar fascination with the Great Books, evoking a moment when pop culture and education merged." - The Los Angeles Times.
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