An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned But Probably Didn't

by Judy Jones

Paperback, 2007

Description

When it was originally published in 1987, An Incomplete Education became a surprise bestseller. Now this instant classic has been completely updated, outfitted with a whole new arsenal of indispensable knowledge on global affairs, popular culture, economic trends, scientific principles, and modern arts. Here’s your chance to brush up on all those subjects you slept through in school, reacquaint yourself with all the facts you once knew (then promptly forgot), catch up on major developments in the world today, and become the Renaissance man or woman you always knew you could be!How do you tell the Balkans from the Caucasus? What’s the difference between fission and fusion? Whigs and Tories? Shiites and Sunnis? Deduction and induction? Why aren’t all Shakespearean comedies necessarily thigh-slappers? What are transcendental numbers and what are they good for? What really happened in Plato’s cave? Is postmodernism dead or just having a bad hair day? And for extra credit, when should you use the adjective continual and when should you use continuous?An Incomplete Education answers these and thousands of other questions with incomparable wit, style, and clarity. American Studies, Art History, Economics, Film, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Science, and World History: Here’s the bottom line on each of these major disciplines, distilled to its essence and served up with consummate flair.In this revised edition you’ll find a vitally expanded treatment of international issues, reflecting the seismic geopolitical upheavals of the past decade, from economic free-fall in South America to Central Africa’s world war, and from violent radicalization in the Muslim world to the crucial trade agreements that are defining globalization for the twenty-first century. And don’t forget to read the section A Nervous American’s Guide to Living and Loving on Five Continents before you answer a personal ad in the International Herald Tribune.As delightful as it is illuminating, An Incomplete Education packs ten thousand years of culture into a single superbly readable volume. This is a book to celebrate, to share, to give and receive, to pore over and browse through, and to return to again and again.From the Hardcover edition.… (more)

Status

Available

Call number

031.02

Genres

Publication

Ballantine Books (2007), Edition: 3rd, 698 pages

User reviews

LibraryThing member jentifer

Judy Jones and William Wilson have written the perfect tome of knowledge for any high school or college student. This large book is divided into twelve main areas of knowledge: American Studies, Art History, Economics, Film, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion,

Science, and World History. Intended as a “gap filler” for students (and adults) who may just need to be reminded of what they already know, this book has takes a light tone yet contains loads of useful information. Some topics include: (in Art History) The Leonardo/Michelangelo Cribsheet, (in Literature) How to Tell Keats from Shelley, and (in Political Science) What You Need to Know Before Answering a Personals Ad in the International Herald-Tribune: A Nervous American’s Guide to Living and Loving on Five Continents. The best feature of this book, however, is the Lexicon (AKA “A Few Hours’ Worth of Remedial Work in Vocabulary, Spelling, Pronunciation, and Foreign Expressions”), which contains such vital lessons as “Twenty-Six Words Not To Write Wrong” and “’How Do You Say in Your Country “Yearning for the Mud”?’: A Stay-at-Home’s Guide to Words and Phrases in Three Foreign Languages”. An invaluable addition to any YA collection, this book is sure to be picked up and read by anyone who finds it lying open on a table.

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LibraryThing member wenestvedt

The book is a splendid miscellany: I cribbed *so* many things out of it for papers in high school that I've often wondered what I missed. Then again, articles in the book -- like the Twelve Fictional Characters You'd Most Like to Have at a Dinner Party -- have also lead me to read the background in

order to better get the joke. I wish all my friends were this smart.

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LibraryThing member ABVR

A learned, irreverent, smart-alecky guide to everything you didn't learn, wish you'd learned, should have learned, or weren't around to learn in college . . . history, literature, philosophy, science, and much more. It's so well written that you can read it (and I've read it) just for entertainment

. . . yet intellectually sound enough that you can use it as a reliable reference. One-of-a-kind.

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LibraryThing member drewandlori

I love this book. Someone gave it to me (for Christmas, I think) years ago, and though bits of it (especially the Political Science chapters) are sort of dated now, I still look through it from time to time.

LibraryThing member MrsLee

I had a blast reading this. It should be given to every college graduate to remind them that life is fun. Lots of information and a completely irreverent way of delivering it.

LibraryThing member figre

This is a fun book and I read it the wrong way which was to just read it and the best approach is to do just what they suggest in the introduction which is dip in and find things that interest you or never interested you before or are just on a randomly selected page because then you won’t go

through the sensory overload I did which occurred because I literally started at page one and slowly but surely read my way to page 678 which doesn’t include the index and don’t worry because I didn’t do it in one sitting or setting or whichever word is the right one which come to think of it I really did in one setting because I didn’t do it at one time but I read the entire thing on my living room couch and I was reading other things in between though not always on the living room couch so it wasn’t like I spent two lifetimes reading through it but by going from start to finish it felt a little like I was really slogging through it but as I think I already said it was worth it and I reinforced some things I already knew and I learned some new things and even for those things I didn’t learn I now know where to go and look them up if I need to but the biggest thing is to not try and get it all in at once you know kind of like this sentence. Instead, do it like these sentences. Get this book and look up what interests you. But find some way to get through the whole thing. You’ll be smarter afterwards.

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LibraryThing member kaelirenee

All the things I couldn't be bothered to learn in school...

Most of the writing in this book is written with a refreshing ammount of levity and humor. The work that went into this book is clear. While it's not the kind of book you curl up with and read for hours straight, it is the kind of book you

read in snippets over the course of many months, interspersed with other books. It certainly won't make up for serious scholarship, research, and boatloads of reading. It will help guide you to things that might actually be WORTH studying, though. For instance, I dispise philosophy, but because of this book, I actually found a philosopher I agree with enough to read. It's amazing what can happen when you read books that dabble in many subjects...

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LibraryThing member Josh_Hanagarne

It's fun to feel smart and this book makes it easy. Even if you're not smart at all, few will know if you can point out the differences between Yeats and Shelley. A lot of fun.

LibraryThing member Harmless_Dilettante

A significantly more extensive version of Father Guido Sarducci's "Five Minute University or What you'll remember after you've been out of college for a year" routine. It's a fun read which will allow you to bore people at cocktail parties then trounce them at trivial pursuit later. I bought a copy

for myself and several friends.

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LibraryThing member Maggie_Rum

I love this book! It's funny, informative, and you certainly feel smarter after just browsing its pages.

LibraryThing member Atsa

I love the format and the conciseness of this. Useful knowledge that can come in handy in understanding the news and current events as well as history.

LibraryThing member Sandydog1

This book rates 6 stars on the pretentious meter. The authors are mildly entertaining, they'd probably be wonderful entertainment at a cocktail party. But if you'd really like to learn fragments of this sprawling series of subjects, do check out this thing called Wikipedia. Of course there was no

such thing at the time this doorstop was published. And some of the information is well, old. The country summaries are a good example, but it somehow works in that you get a snapshot of what the USA thought about various countries in the 1990s. . Sections on Art History, literature, religion, science and lexicon, were very good. Philosophy and psychology sections made my eyes glaze over, as they should, I guess. I don't know about American History. I don't remember that first chapter. It was many months ago.

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LibraryThing member gottfried_leibniz

This book would give you a tour of authors from the West in Liberal arts. It's a repertoire of facts.

Basically an outline of Western Liberal education. I appreciated Literary and Poetry chapters. I never took literature or poetry classes. I would recommend this to high-schoolers or someone who

skipped education.

Deus Vult,
Gottfried

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