Encyclopaedia Britannica: Volume 8

by Encyclopædia Britannica

Book by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc

Genres: Reference

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Sam Rennick · Rating 5 out of 5]

You could do worse than read the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1959 edition. This is the greatest compendium of human knowledge the world has ever known. Of course, one might argue becoming educated begs the question, namely, whether there is any point at all to education, in view not only of our society's diminishing respect for an educated mind, but diminishing understanding of what it even means to be educated. The Spanish-speaking peoples of the world give us a clue. They have a phrase, "sin education," which means, "without education." On the literal level, it means you haven't spent much time in classrooms. More fundamentally, it means you are a vulgar, narrow-minded person. What's the best hedge against this? Sitting in classrooms. The 1959 Britannica's editor-in-chief is William Yust. Besides his managing editor and London editor, he leads an editorial board of 22 scholars at the University of Chicago, nine more at Oxford, Cambridge and London, plus another 19 American consultants and ten more in England. Mr. Yust tells us in his preface there are 43,500 entries by 4,700 authorities from all the countries in the world. Take one article. "Agriculture." An important subject, unquestionably. It covers 75 pages. Some of the articles include agricultural cooperation, agricultural engineering, agricultural power and machinery, agricultural research, agricultural insurance, agricultural credit, agricultural wages, even something called agricultural gangs! There are 20 photographs of farm machinery. Or consider the article on Beethoven. No fact is overlooked, but the author of this article isn't shy about a bit of subjectivity. To wit: "Beethoven may have mastered some things with difficulty, but he mastered nothing incompletely; and where he is not orthodox, it is safest to conclude orthodoxy is wrong." My goodness. Nor is the greatness of this encyclopedia limited to its encyclopedic nature. (Sorry, just couldn't resist.) The writing is polished and erudite, making reading these articles a pleasure. So, if you would be educated, by all means get started! You're not going to read this overnight. If, on the other hand, you prefer ignorance, well, okay. Ignorance, after all, is bliss. It's also ignorance.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best reference book for younger readers by a country mile

[Kazi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found it lying in old bookshelf covered with dust in a veil of scrap but then I found it(The whole encyclopedia) and started to read.Very difficult English though and a few words still not understood by me.!!!!