Great Books for Plain Folks

Abstract

Each of the five chapters that follow the introduction of Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America contains a biographical sketch and appreciation of either an individual or a married couple author Daniel Flynn deems worthy of being classified among the enlightened with blue-collar roots, some of whose intellectual endeavors have succeeded in popularizing or making available important ideas to the average Joe and Jane. Will and Ariel Durant head the list, primarily for their eleven-volume The Story of Civilization (1935–1975), as well as Will’s eleven Little Blue Books distributed by E. Haldeman-Julius. I remember reading Will’s The Story of Philosophy (1926) in high school, and the mixture of biographical anecdotes about the lives of the philosophers together with accessible paraphrases of some of their ideas got me started upon the path of life I followed for the next sixty years. Next comes Mortimer Adler, best known today for the creation of the unwieldy fifty or so volumes of the Great Books of the Western World (1952). Flynn describes him as having a “supersized ego” as well as being “a difficult man.” I would think you would need quite an energetic ego to persuade wealthy individuals to support the Great Books project with the intention “of spreading the wisdom of elite minds to the masses.” It turned out the masses were either not very interested or could not afford the series. Flynn quotes a consumer research firm that concluded that “owners actually use the Great Books infrequently”—not a surprise considering their format and their contents. When I was about ten years old, my father purchased Charles Eliot’s Harvard Classics (1909) for my brother and me. Not only did I come into possession of fifty dark blue volumes of classics, but also of Acad. Quest. (2012) 25:573–576 DOI 10.1007/s12129-012-9321-8