What’s Wrong With the World

by G. K. Chesterton

Publisher:

Dodd, Mead and Company

, 1910

Overview

Taken as a whole, What’s Wrong with the World attempts to advance a conservative social view of twentieth century British affairs. Individually, these essays offer sage advice on political and cultural issues for today. This collection contains essays on feminism, education, imperialism, and more, and together amount to a pointed critique of the prevailing sociological method. The problems with the world run deep—in this volume, Chesterton assails hypocrisy and mediocrity characteristic of the modern era.

Product Details

• Title: What’s Wrong With the World
• Author: G. K. Chesterton
• Publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company
• Publication Date: 1910
• Pages: 367

About G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton was born in London in 1874. He worked at the Redway and T. Fisher Unwin publishing house until 1902, when he began writing regularly—his weekly columns appeared for decades in the Daily News and The Illustrated London News. In all, he wrote more than 80 books, hundreds of poems, 200 short stories, 4,000 essays. Among his writings are his famous apologetic work Orthodoxy, a biography of St. Aquinas, his Father Brown detective stories, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, and The Man Who Was Thursday. He died on June 14, 1936 in Buckinghamshire.

Contents

Top Highlights

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” (Page 48)

“We all disapprove of prostitution; but we do not all approve of purity. The only way to discuss the social evil Is to get at once to the social ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity? I have called this book ‘What Is Wrong with the World?’ and the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right.” (Pages 6–7)

“But exactly the whole difficulty in our public problems is that some men are aiming at cures which other men would regard as worse maladies; are offering ultimate conditions as states of health which others would uncompromisingly call states of disease.” (Page 4)

“But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure before we find the disease.” (Page 1)

“My point is that the world did not tire of the church’s ideal, but of its reality. Monasteries were impugned not for the chastity of monks, but for the unchastity of monks. Christianity was unpopular not because of the humility, but of the arrogance of Christians. Certainly, if the church failed it was largely through the churchmen.” (Pages 46–47)

Product Details

• Title: What’s Wrong with the World
• Author: G. K. Chesterton
• Publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company
• Print Publication Date: 1910
• Logos Release Date: 2010
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Social problems
• Resource ID: LLS:WHWRNGWORLD
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T21:08:07Z

About G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English author of various works, including his famous Orthodoxy. He worked at the Redway and T. Fisher Unwin publishing house until 1902, when he began writing regularly. His weekly columns appeared for decades in the Daily News and The Illustrated London News. In all, he wrote more than 80 books, hundreds of poems, 200 short stories, and 4,000 essays.

Among his other writings are biographies of St. Aquinas, the Father Brown detective stories, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, and The Man Who Was Thursday. His famous Orthodoxy and several other titles including Heretics can be found in the G. K. Chesterton Collection (11 vols.).