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Audiobook edition · 7 h 15 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if your most practical opinions mean little until you decide what life is for?
In Heretics, G. K. Chesterton takes on Rudyard Kipling, Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and the fashions of his day. These essays ask what lies beneath their views on art, politics, and manners. Chesterton’s challenge is direct: how can anyone test an opinion without a larger view of life?
His targets range from doubt that settles nothing to simple living, fashionable science, and the solemn business of being witty. Through these quarrels, Edwardian England comes into view. Chesterton argues that praising one part of life can mean losing sight of the whole. His quick jokes and startling paradoxes keep that argument lively rather than calm.
What you’ll discover
- The beliefs beneath opinions Explore Chesterton’s claim that your view of the universe shapes even your most practical judgments.
- Famous minds under scrutiny Meet Kipling, Shaw, and Wells through arguments that question the measures behind their bold ideas.
- Doubt put to work Consider why Chesterton finds endless questioning insufficient when it leaves nothing firm to build upon.
- Joy against fashionable gloom Follow his challenge to the moods and simple living fashions that prize plainness.
- Wit with a purpose Enjoy jokes and paradoxes that invite you to pause, think, and look at ordinary life again.
Who will love it
For readers who enjoy argument, essays and quick wit, and anyone curious about how a believer answered the doubters of his time. Lovers of paradox and debates about faith, joy and ordinary life will find plenty to explore.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Your view of the universe comes first
- Doubt by itself builds nothing
- A wide world can make a small mind
- Shaw and Wells: bold minds without a fixed measure
- Joy is more basic than gloom
- Nations, races and the lure of fashionable science
- Wit, play and the dignity of the ordinary
- How the challenge has lasted and been answered
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- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Ketzer
by G. K. Chesterton · 1905
Chesterton takes on Shaw, Kipling and Wells to ask what their ideas miss about the meaning of life.
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In short
Heretics is a book of essays by G. K.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Your view of the universe comes first
Chesterton opens by attacking a habit of his age. People, he says, treat the question of what life means as a boring matter for priests, and they call themselves practical for ignoring it. He argues that this gets things backward. The most practical thing about a person is the picture of the world they carry in their head, because every choice grows out of it.
He gives an everyday comparison. If you rent a house, you would like to know the landlord's income, but it matters even more to know his philosophy. If you meet a general about to fight a war, you want to know the enemy's strength, and even more, the philosophy of the enemy. In each case the belief shapes the action.
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What is Heretics by G. K. Chesterton about?
It is a book of essays that challenges leading writers and fashions of Edwardian England, such as Kipling, Shaw and Wells. Chesterton argues that people must have a clear view of life's meaning, or they cannot judge anything well.
Why is the book called Heretics?
Chesterton uses the old word for someone who stresses one truth so far that it hides the rest. He says his age is full of such thinkers, though it no longer believes in a standard to depart from.
Is Heretics connected to Orthodoxy?
Yes. After Heretics appeared, people challenged Chesterton to say what he himself believed. He answered in Orthodoxy, published in 1908, so the two books are often read as a pair.
The author
G. K. Chesterton
1874–1936 · English writer and Christian apologist
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English writer born in London. He wrote novels, essays, poems and plays. His books include Heretics (1905), The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) and The Innocence of Father Brown (1911). He moved to Beaconsfield in 1909 and lived there until his death.
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