evenlake

The works included in Harvard Classics are arranged somewhat pellmell into 50 volumes, so there are an additional 2 volumes of reading guides, indexes, and lectures to assist in tackling the whole set in a more organized fashion. I figured I might as well start big: The History of Civilization.

The course starts with an essay, “Race and Language” by Edward Augustus Freeman. Though written in 1879, and despite using dated, borderline-racist terms like “inferior races,” it is remarkably prescient. Freeman’s argument is that race is an artificial construct, as is language, as a means of national identity. He states that the people of his time were starting to identify with their cultures based on these very constructs, and it was changing the political affiliations of Europe. For those who would doubt him, he warns,

I must emphatically say that nothing can be more shallow, nothing more foolish, nothing more purely sentimental, than the talk of those who think that they can simply laugh down or shriek down any doctrine or sentiment which they themselves do not understand.

He foresaw the nationalism that led to the devastation of World War II and Hitler’s determination to unite the Germanic people.

One main object of modern policy is to bring these exceptional districts under the general rule by spreading the German language in them.

And his observations are still eerily relevant today. He writes of the idea of a Slavic people, and foresees the political climate of the post-Yugoslavian Balkan states.

It is a feeling at whose bidding the call to union goes forth to men whose dwellings are geographically far apart, to men who may have had no direct dealings with one another for years or for ages, to men whose languages, though the scholar may at once see that they are closely akin, may not be so closely akin as to be mutually intelligible for common purposes.

A hundred years back the Servian might have cried for help to the Russian on the ground of common Orthodox faith; he would hardly have called for help on the ground of common Slavonic speech and origin.

Certainly a great introduction to these volumes, for one of my greatest worries was their relevance.

I have a Kindle. Don’t worry, though. This isn’t going to be a post talking about how much I love it (I really do) or how much it has changed my life (it really hasn’t).

Ever since I first read a book on my PDA nearly 7 years ago, I have dreamt of a device that was portable and could hold my entire library in its memory. My dream device has a leather cover, is about the size of a trade paperback, can hold around 500 books, and is as easy on the eyes as a real book. Pretty much exactly what the Kindle is.

It needed to hold 500 books so it could hold all of the works of what has been called the Western Canon. When I was in college, I first encountered the Harvard Classics, otherwise known as the Five Foot Shelf. (The editor, Charles Eliot, had stated that a good education could be obtained by reading for a few minutes a day from a collection of books that would fit on a five-foot shelf.) I had seen a complete set in Green Apple Books in San Francisco, and immediately began to covet it. But being a poor college student, I decided instead I would learn what books should be included and then read them all anyway as used paperbacks.

I created a list on a typewriter in my room between study sessions. I kept the list with me as I moved from city to city, updating it periodically in both form and content. I created a website for it 1994, then a database in 1999. I still have the list and it has grown to include works beyond the West. And yet, my desire to read the entire 5-foot shelf continued to swell.

Then I got the Kindle, and discovered that someone at the MobileRead forums had converted the entire set into ebooks. I downloaded them a few weeks ago, and just last night finished the last of the other books in my queue. Tonight, I begin to tackle #64 – Read the Harvard Classics.