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A Miscellany of Men

G. K. Chesterton

Book Overview: 

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was among the world’s most prolific writers who incorporated relentless logic, wonderful humor, and a clear view of truth into an amazing tool for exposing the foolishness of the policies of the world around him through the device of paradox.

It is always great fun, and certainly always a learning experience to read Chesterton. A Miscellany of Men may be his hardest work to define, as it deals with a huge array of issues, using “personal types” as illustration. It would only be bewildering, if there was not these common threads: First that these types still exist, and the same faulty reasoning applies to issues of our day, and second, that underlying all of this is a firm and reasoned defense of democracy in a sense very close to that of the American Founding Fathers.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .I cannot imagine that any of them could be worse than the present social madhouse, with its top-heavy rich and its tortured poor; but I say that it is an evidence of the stiff and narrow alternative offered to the civic mind, that the civic mind is not, generally speaking, conscious of these other possibilities. The civic mind is not free or alert enough to feel how much it has the world before it. There are at least ten solutions of the Education question, and no one knows which Englishmen really want. For Englishmen are only allowed to vote about the two which are at that moment offered by the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition. There are ten solutions of the drink question; and no one knows which the democracy wants; for the democracy is only allowed to fight about one Licensing Bill at a time.

So that the situation comes to this: The democracy has a right to answer questions, but it has no right to ask them. It is still the political aristocracy that. . . Read More

Community Reviews

Reading Chesterton is a jerky experience, like being stuck on a subway train that keeps lurching forward and shuddering to a stop for no apparent reason (yes, Toronto Transit Commission, you’re still on my shit list). One minute he’s giving you these little starts of wonder or excitement, and the ne

Reading the early essays of G.K. Chesterton (before he got too involved with politics or religion) is one of the best experiences of my reading life. A Miscellany of Men was published in 1912 and contains some thirty or forty short essays that range in quality from good to magnificent -- particularl

A random collection of essays. Some pure flights of fancy. Others on varying topics from various strikes (generally on the philosophical side) to the problem with the Solar Myth that was so popular as an explanation of every story (everyone can see the sun, no one would try to disguise it as a drago

Fascinating portraits of men and women that Chesterton regards as being on the rise in his day. These essays demand further pondering on whether they manifest today and whether Chesterton's evaluations hold true.

The usual Chesterton wit, but with some obscure references that provoked dozing off. Loved The Contented Man essay.

A collection of Chesterton's essays written for the Daily News. This collection shows Chesterton at his usual Genius. More broad than some of the other collections of this type, this book still has a cohesive feel as the themes of Family, Liberty, and Common Sense permeate the work. Well worth readi

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