Dictionary of Accepted Ideas

Jacques Barzun's masterful translation proves that Flaubert's Dictionary of Accepted Ideas—an acid catalogue of the clichés of 19th-century France—is as relevant today as ever. Throughout his life Flaubert made it a game to eavesdrop for the cliché, the platitude, the borrowed and unquestioned idea with which the “right thinking” swaddle their minds. After his death his little treasury of absurdities, of half-truths and social lies, was published as a Dictionnaire des idées reçues. Because its d...