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Originally Posted by morriss003
I'm really sorry to hear that. I read the entire series in college (there are about 12 volumes) and it was the finest education I received in college. I recently read the two part condensed version which I purchased on ebay. Still excellent. I just cannot imagine anyone being really educated in western history without having read them.
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It certainly is possible to be well educated in Western History without having read Bury, just as it's possible to be well educated in the history of Roman Empire without having read Gibbon. The same information is available from more modern authors.
Bury's advantage is that he is in P.D. and thus has the e-books available for free. The down side is that free doesn't mean well scanned or formatted. The other downside is that our understanding of history has changed quite a bit since 1911. Personally, I find that Bauer's books give a nice over all frame work of the same period, which can be filled in by narrower focused books, such as Freeman's "The Closing of the Western Mind" and Brownworth's "Lost to the West".
But of course, this all is way off topic.