On Feb 4, 2012, at 2:08 PM, John Wesley wrote:
> Does anyone remember the mass-marketed 54-volume set of "The Great
> Books" of the Western World, that was so extensively advertised in
> popular-circulation magazines back in the Sixties? I think that it
> may also be related to the concept of having all one's "essential"
> readings, in one handy collection. Funny, I haven't seen or heard of
> the "Great Books" set being marketed in years. Another casualty of
> the Internet, maybe?
More likely a casualty of its own incompetence: tiny type, lousy translations, cheap binding and paper, absence of essential background and criticism, etc.
Shane Mage "When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly.
When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true." (N. Weiner)