Excerpt from Main Currents of European History, 1815-1915 The substance of these ten lectures was delivered under the auspices of the London County Council to a large audience of teachers during the autumn of 1916. The purpose of the lectures was not-what is normally a proper function of lectures - to excite interest; for the audience was already professionally interested in the theme. Stili less was it - what is rarely legitimate in lectures - to impart detailed information; for the audience was already in possession of excellent text-books. The purpose was the lowly one of reducing a complex and confused century to comprehensible categories, of emphasising its dominant characteristics, of rendering it more readily teachable. In order to achieve this purpose the lecturer divided the century chronologically into half a dozen consecutive periods, and tried to find in each period some single prevailing feature. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The commanding study of Marxism, now in one masterful volume with a new preface and epilogue by the author.

"Baumer's collection maps better than any other with which we are familiar the seminal and distinguishing ideological climates in western civilization."--Seventeenth Century News Many disciplines create books of readings by the dozens; it is a rare event when a reader helps to create a discipline. On its initial publication in 1952, Main Currents of Western Thought did just that. In the years since its first appearance, Main Currents has remained unquestionably the leading reader in its field. The illuminating short essays that introduce sections and subsections are well known, but the continuing usefulness of any reader depends upon the quality of its selections. Franklin Le Van Baumer has sought out passages that best represent and illuminate the ideas and preoccupations of each age. He has found them in the works of the great, including Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Luther, Newton, Voltaire, Darwin, Whitehead, and Freud. But he has also discovered telling statements in writings less widely known: Ramón Lull on chivalry (13th century), Henry Peacham on "the complete gentleman" and Leonard Busher on religious liberty (both 17th century), Louis-René de la Chalotais on education (18th century), Samuel Smiles on "self-help" (19th century) and Virgil Gheorgiu on mechanization (20th century).