The Harvard Classics

The goal is to read one volume each month and meet at a coffee shop to discuss.

Until recently the Western world regarded it as self‑evident that the road to education lay through great books, and no man was considered educated unless he was acquainted with the masterpieces of Western literature. There was never much doubt about which the masterpieces were; they were the books which had stood the test of time and had continued to be acclaimed as the finest creations, in writing, of the Western mind, and the tradition of the West is embodied in the Great Conversation that began in the dawn of history and continues to the present day.

We are as concerned as anyone at the headlong plunge into the abyss which Western civilization seems to be taking, and we believe that the voices that have taken part in the Great Conversation can do much to recall the West to sanity. The alternatives are clear: democracy will fall prey to the loudest and most persistent propagandists unless the people save themselves from this fate by so strengthening their minds that they can appraise the issues for themselves. The goal toward which Western society moves is the Civilization of the Dialogue; the spirit of Western civilization is the spirit of inquiry, its dominant element the logos, where nothing is to remain undiscussed, everybody is to speak his mind, no proposition is to be left unexamined, and the exchange of ideas is held to be the path to the realization of human potential.