This book heavily shaped how Tim O’Reilly thinks. So I scoured the internets and could only find a $29.99 paperback version on Amazon.
After mentioning this to Tim on Twitter (he didn’t know of an online copy, either), I decided to create one. I ordered the paperback, waited 4 weeks for it to arrive (it was delayed twice), then mailed it to 1dollarscan to create a PDF. It did not cost 1 dollar, but they were fast and reliable.
So, here it is! You can download it via my public Dropbox link:
The Meaning of Culture by John Cowper Powys [16mb PDF]
I hope you enjoy it! I’m only on page 23. It’s a harder, conceptually denser read than your modern business book, but it’s worth the work. Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants (another powerful book) puts me in a similar state-of-brain.
Some quotes:
The truth is that a man’s ignorance is as much a part of the instinctive art of his life as any learning he may acquire. Both are the expression of his psychic fatality; both are calculated, both habitual.
Since the conscious development of the awareness of our existence is the very essence of culture, it is necessary to acquire the habit of falling back in our thoughts upon the basic human situation.
A person certainly does not realize all in a moment the influence that literature exerts over human minds, the power it has of transferring to one’s real experience that mythical heightening which it diffuses through its imaginary world.