Dead White Guys

A Father, His Daughter and the Great Books of the Western World

Matt Burriesci

• Publisher: Viva Editions
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781632280268
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism History & Theory
• Index: Literature

Dead White Guys is a timely defense of the great books, arriving in the middle of a national debate about the fate of these books in high schools and universities around the country. Burriesci shows how the great books can enrich our lives as individuals, as citizens, and in our careers. Extending the argument first made by Anna Quinndlen's on the act of reading itself, How Reading Changed My Life," ("It is like the rubbing of two sticks together to make a fire, the act of reading, an improbable pedestrian task that leads to heat and light,) Burriesci reminds us all of the enormous impact reading has on our lives. After his daughter was born prematurely in 2010, Burriesci set out to write a book about 26 Great Books, from Plato to Karl Marx, and how their lessons have applied to his life. As someone who has spent a long and successful career advocating for great literature, Burriesci defends the great books in this series of tender and candid letters, rich in personal experience and full of humor. Matt Burriesci is a national literary leader, serving as Executive Director of both PEN/Faulkner, which bestows the largest peer-juried prize for fiction

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface: Dear Violet
• 1. What Do I Know?—Plato, Apology
• 2. When Is It Right to Do the Wrong Thing?—Plato, Crito
• 3. Have We Become Gods?—Aristophanes, The Clouds
• 4. Is There Any Justice in the World?—Plato, Republic
• 5. What Is Happiness?—Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I
• 6. Is the Customer King?—Aristotle, Politics, Book I
• 7. Who Should Be in Charge?—Plutarch, The Life of Lycurgus
• 8. The State as Church—Plutarch, The Life of Numa Pompilius
• 9. Punch the Bully in the Face—Plutarch, The Life of Alexander
• 10. Hubris—Plutarch, The Life of Julius Caesar
• 11. What Would Jesus Do?—St. Matthew, The Gospel of Jesus Christ
• 12. Can People Change?—St. Luke, The Acts of the Apostles
• 13. How Can God Let Bad Things Happen?—St. Augustine, The Confessions
• 14. Do the Ends Justify the Means?—Machiavelli, The Prince
• 15. What’s Your Major?—Montaigne, Of the Education of Children
• 16. Is America Exceptional?—Montaigne, Of Cannibals
• 17. Why Am I Afraid?—Montaigne, That the Relish of Good and Evil Depends in Great Measure Upon the Opinion We Have of Them
• 18. What Don’t I Know?—Montaigne, That It Is Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity
• 19. What If Life Is Meaningless?—William Shakespeare, Hamlet
• 20. What Is Government For?—John Locke, Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government
• 21. What’s Best for Everyone?—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
• 22. Are Gods Immortal?—Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapters 15-16
• 23. What Are “American Values”?—Various, including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, The Declaration of Independence
• 24. Your Rights* *Subject to Change at Any Time.—Various, The Constitution of the United States
• 25. Is Greed Good?—Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
• 26. Does Capitalism Work?—Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party
• Bibliography
• About the Author