Reading the World: Ideas That Matter, with 2016 MLA Update

I have taught two college-level writing courses with this book, and I continue to be impressed with the scope of its readings. Unlike every other "great-ideas" reader that I have ever seen, READING THE WORLD actually reads, well, the world. It includes many of the traditional Western authors that are common in such collections (Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Martin Luther Francis Bacon, Rousseau, Hobbes, Martin Luther King, etc.), but it adds to the mix a VERY generous assortment of classical non-Western thinkers as well (Sun-Tzu, Mencius, Shotoku, Kenyatta, Gotama, Al-Ghazali, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and many more). I am glad that someone believes--and that some major textbook publishers are beginning to see--that "diversity" in education means a lot more than just the social divisions of American in the 20th and 21st century. There is a very big world out there waiting to be read, and READING THE WORLD is a pretty good place to start.