Before we had radio, telephones, television, the Internet and iPods, we had books. Long books. Complicated books. Books that got read, their length and complexity notwithstanding, because before talk shows and chat rooms, what else was there to do? Back then, people like Adam Smith wrote long, long, long volumes like “The Wealth of Nations,” which revolutionized economic thought and theory when it was published in 1776. Smith’s treatise, as transformational in its own way as the American Revolution, established the intellectual foundation of capitalism, free markets and individual choice, which are taken as givens in American life the same way that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are.
Today, however, almost no one other than the obsessed (or the assigned) is likely to read Smith’s book, which runs more than 900 pages; the author’s convoluted prose makes it seem even longer than that.
So, Atlantic Monthly Press has the business writer P. J. O’Rourke channeling Adam Smith in a work titled “On ‘The Wealth of Nations.’ ” Think of it as a hardcover blog, in which O’Rourke cites Smith’s essential points, and riffs while preaching Smithian doctrine.
This opus is part of a series its publisher calls Books That Changed the World, a description to which we should append, as O’Rourke says, the further title “Works Which Let’s Admit You’ll Never Read the Whole Of.” Due soon are two other oft-cited but rarely-read-in-full classics: The Koran and Darwin’s “Origin of Species.”
Its a very clever, very market-driven thought: getting to know the classics without having to read them....and you can trust experts like us to tag them as 'McClassics'.
4 comments:
brilliant...my fast food mind(in non-food matters:-)loves it!
great post!
I am a taker for all three titles!
I also think we have (or at least I have) lost the ability to read longer stuff partly due to magazines, where the longest piece is hardly more than a half an hour read.
Oh, if there's one boon i covet, it's the ability to read like an academic. Taking up a topic and being able to read every single tome referencing the subject.
Another very interesting read is, Thorsten Veblen's "The Theory of the Leisure Class"
This is famtastic stuff - the same gent who first observed conspicious consumption and derieved what economists call "the demonstration effect" - perceptions of quality are directly proportional to price. For me, this seemed to be a sort of starting point in the history of brand building
that 'magazine induced laziness' in reading long stuff is true for all of us, i guess...speacially in these time-crunched times. we keep books aside for holidays and vacations (already put aside 2 titles for a 4 day vacation in goa...) and yet unable to accomplish 100% results (will let you know about my success rate, later).
and knowing you manish, i can already see a complete book-rack dedicated to the series...cheers!
Post a Comment