Editorial Reviews:
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"An astonishing amount of information."
--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
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. Here's your chance to fill in the gaps left by your school years, reacquire all the facts you once knew then promptly forgot, and become the Renaissance man or woman you always suspected you could be!
What was so important about the Dred Scott decision? Why aren't all Shakespearean comedies necessarily thigh-slappers? What happened inside Plato's cave? What's the difference between a fade-out and a dissolve? Fission and fusion? Shi'ites and Sunnis? The apostles and the disciples? Is postmodernism dead or just having a bad hair day? And for extra credit, how do you tell deduction from induction?
An Incomplete Education answers these and thousands of other questions with incomparable wit, style, clarity, and brevity. 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 new edition you'll find up-to-the-minute analyses of the geopolitical situation in Eastern Europe, Indochina, and the Horn of Africa; the latest breakthroughs in cloning and gene splicing; brand-new takes on the economy, from disinflation to global competition; a look at the recent upheavals surrounding abortion rights, free speech, and the death penalty; and much, much more.
Ponder the legacies of eight American intellectuals (a couple of whom aren't even dead yet). Get a handle on 350 years of opera; the central ideas of Freud and five of his famous followers; the meanings of eighteen inscrutable-looking adjectives, from jejune to heuristic, numinous to otiose. Bone up on entropy and evolution. Take a whirlwind tour of English poetry from Chaucer to Yeats. Learn what to look for in Rubens or Rembrandt, The Birth of a Nation or Citizen Kane.
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.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Received what promised.
Comment: An Incomplete Education is just as it was described both in content and condition. It came in a timely manner. I would not hesitate to order again through amazon.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Interesting concept, many inaccuracies
Comment: The concept and presentation of the book is great; however, (I believe in an attempt to be humorous), there are many inaccuracies and misrepresentations.
Customer Rating:
Summary: For the Person who Knows Everything
Comment: I bought this book for my sister who is one of the smartest people I know. She loves trivia and little known facts. She loved it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent quality and service!
Comment: The book arrived in pristine condition and I was proud to give it as a Christmas present. Thank you for the speedy shipment and care in packaging.
Customer Rating:
Summary: elitist snobbery wrapped in infanitle humor and factually plain wrong
Comment: a short skim reading of this interesting-looking book revealed several things.
First, they get their facts wrong. Small facts here and there for sure, but definetly just plain wrong. My field is religious studies, and they really do not know what they are talking about. They make silly, basic mistakes that my students would pick up.
Second, they are extremely left leaning and (to boot)intellectual snobs, which might be fine if you are as well, just do not go looking for a balanced view on anything like religion.
Their humor is childish because it makes fun of the material, reducing its importance (again depending on their enlightenment liberal sensibilities) and thus denegrates the cultural heritage. This shows that their ongoing humorous attempts to "popularize" include an agenda. They ridicule constantly those ideas and thinkers they do not seem to like. This betrays a lack of understanding of such thinkers as (for instance) Augustine, who managed to shape european culture for about 1500 years. Its weak humor at best. It is never witty, just cutting. That works for the Simpsons, but not for a book like this.
The slant is so ingrained in this book, it is hard to find something good to say about it. Christians , Muslims, Anyone who is proud to be an American, and many others would find this book very insulting.
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