An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't,   ISBN:9780345468901

Customer Rating: 

There are 678 pages of subjects. Jones and Wilson cover almost every possible subject. The book appears intimidating in size and scope. However, it is an easy read because subjects can be covered in one page. Just open to any page and read for 15 minutes and put it down if you desire.

Customer Rating: 

I was highly disappointed with the first edition - glaring omissions and inaccuracies abound. For example: Gerard Manley Hopkins is not even mentioned in the section concerning the British poets and in the chapter on religion, the authors make the boorish mistake of confusing the doctrine of the "Immaculate Conception" with that of the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ. It might seem trivial to some, but if you want to write a book purporting to illuminate such topics, you better be up to the task, especially when your style is on the snide and cynical side. Maybe corrections were made in later editions, but I wouldn't count on it. Certainly a better read for this purpose is "A History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future" by Charles Van Doren, which Amazon also stocks.

Customer Rating: 

Hard to read, the author injects sloppy humor and anecdotes into the history. Making fun of historical figures, joking about religions and using sentences that are broken up by multiple parentheses.

Too bad I didn't read the reviews before I spent the money....


There is still some good info there but it's too much hassle to pick out the serious writing from the personal opinions

Customer Rating: 

Topic coverage is all too, too cutsey. Trades humor for viable information. Entertains rather than educates. Want simple useful information? Purchase an elementary textbook on the subject and you will come away better informed.

Customer Rating: 

Although it is very uneven, it is never dull. This irreverent review of everything we thought we knew, but didn't, is worth the plunge. However, a word of warning is in order: Better to enter with questions in mind than to read it from cover to cover as I did. The first section, which is mostly an outline with snide commentary, I found rather worthless. Not so for many of the other sections which tended to lend themselves better to being summarized in outline form: For instance economics, which I continue to try to learn enough to stick to my brain. The authors here gave it to us in the proper dosage; not too much, not too little, and not force fed - although it is incomplete, as many common economic terms are missing.

The section on film was a bit too eclectic to be of much use to me. It lacked rhyme or reason (not that other section has any either). Art History is good as is philosophy, but owning to the earlier edict that they too appear more robust in summary and outline form.

Political science is just plain weird, as it takes a country-by-country approach. Or is it a region-by-region approach? Or is it just a pick any area and any topic approach? After a few paragraphs, on this section, I simply gave up on it all together. Psychology is just okay, as it hews closest to the Freudian tradition as viewed by "American Freudians."

The section on religion is excellent if you are either a "balanced religionists (Is there such a thing?), or a non-theist as I am. It gives a completely disinterested and dispassionate equal opportunity treatment of the tenets and the foibles of the various religions doctrines, but at times bleeds over into philosophy, which I suppose is as it should be. However, had I written the book I would have put some of the topics that appeared here under philosophy.

Science again is kind of a grab bag, biased in the direction of the exotic topics, which is just fine with me. Although a great deal of the more mundane stuff makes up the foundation and is needed for the exotic stuff to stick to the brain. World History too is a no brainer and could be good even if it were a dog's breakfast of a collection (as this collection is). It is avowedly Eurocentric, more about personalities than about events, or military conquests, and includes other oddities such as a discussion of Richard Hofstadter and Michel Foucault. Why here? (Go figure?) .

Anyway, on balance, it's a worthy read but mostly as a reference source. For instance on the first section, as well as on the section on literature, I got out my old cliff notes and read them in tandem. That was a much better experience than simply relying on the author's often very cute but also very sketchy entries. When you finish this book, as advertised, you will then truly have an incomplete education. A true three star effort.