British writer GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON (1874-1936) expounded prolifically about his wide-ranging philosophies-he is impossible to categorize as "liberal" or "conservative, " for instance-across a wide variety of avenues: he was a literary critic, historian, playwright, novelist, columnist, and poet.

This 1910 book is a unified work about all the broad array of worries that trouble the world, but it can be read in essaylike chunks. Discovering Chesterton's inimitable take on:

. Wanted, an Unpractical Man
. The Free Family
. The Wildness of Domesticity
. Oppression by Optimism
. Wisdom and the Weather
. The Unmilitary Suffragette
. The Romance of Thrift
. The Higher Anarchy
. The Truth About Education
. The Need for Narrowness
. The Staleness of the New Schools
. The Empire of the Insect

An excellent introduction to the world of G.K. Chesteton, this is a volume as pertinent today as it was a century ago.