- July 17th, 2014, 9:34 am
#457359
This is a list compiled by Intercollegiate Review, which is a conservative group, so these books are by and large conservative-leaning. I've only read 2 on the list (Orthodoxy, Abolition of Man), and only had one other on my to-read list (The Constitution of Liberty), but this definitely gives me some titles to add to my Amazon wish list.
http://www.intercollegiatereview.com/in ... h-century/
Here are their top 5:
http://www.intercollegiatereview.com/in ... h-century/
Here are their top 5:
1. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1907)What do you think? I'm looking forward to their 50 Wost Books list, should be fun.
Pessimism and nostalgia at the bright dawn of the twentieth century must have seemed bizarre to contemporaries. After a century of war, mass murder, and fanaticism, we know that Adams’s insight was keen indeed.
2. C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1947)
Preferable to Lewis’s other remarkable books simply because of the title, which reveals the true intent of liberalism.
3. Whittaker Chambers, Witness (1952)
The haunting, lyrical testament to truth and humanity in a century of lies (and worse). Chambers achieves immortality recounting his spiritual journey from the dark side (Soviet Communism) to the—in his eyes—doomed West. One of the great autobiographies of the millennium.
4. T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays, 1917–1932 (1932, 1950)
Here, one of the century’s foremost literary innovators insists that innovation is only possible through an intense engagement of tradition. Every line of Eliot’s prose bristles with intelligence and extreme deliberation.
5. Arnold Toynbee, Aof History (1934–61)
Made the possibility of a divine role in history respectable among serious historians. Though ignored by academic careerists, Toynbee is still read by those whose intellectual horizons extend beyond present fashions.
- By TH Spangler
- By olldflame