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A Great Idea at the Time

The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books

A Great Idea at the Time Open the full-size image

Contributors

By Alex Beam

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Nov 4, 2008
Page Count
360 pages
Publisher
PublicAffairs
ISBN-13
9780786726981

Price

$9.99

Price

$12.99 CAD

Format

ebook

Format:

ebook $9.99 $12.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around November 4, 2008. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

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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?

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Alex Beam

About the Author

Alex Beam is a columnist for the Boston Globe and for the International Herald Tribune. He is the author of two works of nonfiction, Gracefully Insane and A Great Idea at the Time, both New York Times Notable Books. He has also written for the Atlantic Monthly, Slate, and Forbes/FYI. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts with his wife and three sons.

Learn more about this author