A World of Ideas Lee Jacobus

by Lee A. Jacobus

The most successful reader of its kind, A World of Ideas is ideal for composition instructors who want to introduce their students to some of the world's most important thinkers and their for example, Niccoló Machiavelli on government, Sigmund Freud on the mind, and Virginia Woolf on feminism. Because students perceive writers such as these as serious and important, they take the writing course more they learn to read more attentively, think more critically, and write more effectively. But more important, this may be a student's only opportunity to encounter these thinkers. No other composition reader offers a comparable collection of important readings along with the supportive apparatus students need to understand, analyze, and respond to them.

Genres: Philosophy, Writing, Nonfiction, Reference, Literature, Textbooks, History

928 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1893

Reviews

[Lisa Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are an English prof., this is a great book for your classes. If you are teaching an intro. to philosophy course, likewise, it's a great book. Students will engage with Machiavelli, Rousseau, Jefferson, Montaigne, Plato, Aristotle, MLK Jr., DeBeauvoir, Galbraith, and so many other thinkers of all time periods. It's challenging and fun for classes. I'm using it currently in a composition class and have used it in the past as well.

[Ben Lind · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these essays are worth revisiting on a regular basis.

- Henry David Thoreau: Civil Disobedience
- Martin Luther King Jr.: Letter from Birmingham Jail
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: Self-Reliance
- Erich Fromm: The Individual in the Chains of Illusion
- Carl Marx: The Communist Manifesto
- Andrew Carnegie: The Gospel of Wealth
- Robert B. Reich: Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer
- Plato: The Allegory of the Cave
- Steven Pinker: Thinking Machines
- Friedrich Nietzsche: Morality as Anti-Nature
- Peter Singer and Jim Mason: The Ethics of Eating Meat
- John Stuart Mill: The Subjection of Women
- Germaine Greer: Masculinity

[Nathan Titus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is hard to rate because it is what it is. As an introduction to various rhetorical techniques it does a good job; every writing style there is more or less us represented here. But 8 didn't read it for technique; I read it for content. I don't think that's an odd thing to do either; when one studies the writing techniques one can't help but be influenced by the writing itself. As a college textbook I was not expecting it to be entertaining. What I would have liked though was some better content.
How can you rate the content of a book where Adam Smith and Karl Marx literally share space back to back? Well there were 1 or 2 good essays I'll give the book that. But the essays by smith and Aristotle were super weak sauce. The later was apparently a big fan of slavery and the farmer's definition of capitalism was owning land and having people work it for you like some kind of medieval lord. Whereas Plato came off as a great intellectual and any idea that promoted socialism was elevated to tremendous height. Ouch. No wonder it took me over 2 years to read the thing!! I seriously want to rename this book A World of Bad Ideas.

[Phillip Gallegos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book thus far. The selections are great, the areas covered are broad, and the ideas always intriguing. Even if writing is not your thing, I would still recommend this for the ideas and writers presented. I was far too lucky to find this at the public library bookstore for only a couple of dollars...

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was not a big fan of this book in high school, but it really did prepare me for college level readings

[Matt Sautman · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first received this reader as part of my duties on SIUE's Textbook Review Community, I was incredibly excited by the promising array of readings in this book, but I felt somewhat taken aback by the altogether absence of African American women in A World of Ideas [what does this absence suggest about the book before even reading it?]. In fact, only one woman of color appears in this book at all, the former Paksitani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and the altogether marginal presence women of color have in the book proves even more dubious when considering that this is the 10th edition of this collection. Equally unsettling is a remark Jacobus makes in the introduction to the Thomas Jefferson section when Jacobus writes, “Historians have pointed out that Jefferson probably had an affair with Sally Hemmings, a mixed race slave, and fathered children with her” (116). There are plenty of excellent texts in here, Bhutto's, Michio Kaku's, Lao-Tzu's. and others, for example, but the name of this book is less A World of Ideas, and is more so A Western World of Ideas with a Tiny Amount of Non-Western Ideas so that Universities will Adopt This as a Textbook. I admire Jacobus's vision to make these ideas more accessible to students. I just wish that these ideas better reflected ongoing intersectional conversations in First-Year Writing.

[Jared Estes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I was completely impressed on how much I was able to take from these texts! The 8th edition has a wonderful range of ancient to contemporary texts. From Plato to Lao-Tzu, Virginia Woolf, Jim Mason and Pete Singer. Though, I did use this book for a class, what I learned will take me through many walks of life. This book contains enough texts to address (maybe not answer but address) all the complex issues of humanity. This is a great book for extreme annotation, with critical thinking questions from the author at the end of each piece! Awesome!

[Suzanne Singman · Rating 4 out of 5]

it was a college book for one of my daughters. I found it really interesting for the essays. I did not answer the questions or write the papers, but i did learn something by reading all the essays and thinking about critical thinking.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a school textbook that I had to read 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Oakley-Raine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eventhough, I read this book for school and would not pick it to read on my own accord, I did find a few essays worth the read. I really enjoyed Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter to Birmingham Jail, Frederick Douglass' From the Narrative, and Rachel Carson's The Sunless Sea. I personally found the information the author provided before each new section and touching on the writing style very helpful and informative.

[Jennifer Roldan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once started off as a required textbook from college soon became a book I would often refer back to. I feel like this book introduced me to so many of the literary greats and taught me to think even more creatively. I didn't like the instructor for this course (still don't) but grateful to have this book on my shelf.

[Tatsuru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Work is done, class is complete. There is only so far a classroom can offer to inspire a perpetual reader but the authors are notable and the writing is...influential... it was just a little too much of a structured reading though, not for the entertainment.

[H.R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the pieces in here are not quite applicable as this is, I'm sure, likely a college text, but there are some pieces that are applicable to everyday life. I broke out a highlighter and enjoyed lining some pieces of text.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

A grad school textbook with collection of writings and critiques of their styles.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the most part, the readings were okay.

[Qihua]

Collection of excerpts good for reading list references.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Rhetoric resource!

[Ingrid · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must for every college student!!! Very good lectures!!

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had a lot of good pieces in it that were very helpful in english class. As far as english textbooks go this was one of the best

[Julia Simpson-Urrutia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have used this book in my class for years. I find nothing matches its quality.

[✨ Anna ✨ | ReadAllNight]

Looks like I picked this up at the UC bookstore. It's the third edition with a 1990 date. Some underlining. Hmm.

[Cc · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was really useful to read this book for my English course.

[Kana`I Thronas-Kahoonei · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was great