A Very Claremont Christmas 2004 (Conservative scholars recommend their favorite books)
and an additional note,
I expect that some will object to the lack of inclusion of the Bible in these lists, and although I certainly wouldn't be so arrogant as to put words in the mouths of the authors of these reviews, I'm guessing that in this regard they are operating with a similar outlook as did the legendary Mortimer Adler, who felt that it should be assumed that thoughtful people would already have at least a learning foundation in the Bible before moving on to other avenues of philosophy, which is why he didn't include it in the Great Books of the Western World series; although he did cite the Bible when appropriate.
Please feel free to recommend your own favorites, but I'm hoping that you will also tell us the reason(s) why you find a particular work to be exceptional.
Hmmmm....I guess that comment could use some thought.
Please feel free to recommend your own favorites, but I'm hoping that you will also tell us the reason(s) why you find a particular work to be exceptional. .
The majority of books above have in common a theme: how we interact with institutions.
If mankind has been determined to do something well, it is the easy eagerness of his submission of his heart to an institution out there (pick a card, any card, but just one), and its concommiment career and loyalty requirements. But a certain institution not created by mankind, marriage, gets too little press.
Reforming Marriage is a book I highly recommend for any Christian husband/wife team who feel that the husband part of that team needs some work. In short, it is not an issue of returning lost masculinity to men, but the rebuilding of the meat of the word 'husband', and its actual manifestations in real life. Of course, if the 'Fatherhood' of God is too offensive to the reader, they'll find the words upon their minds to be intolerable.
Federal Husband builds on the former book, and directs the reader to some concrete instutional realities of Husbandry.
For example, Jealously is not only good, properly applied ... it is an essential feature of a 'right' marriage.
But it is not cool to speak of Jealously these days in a positive sense. In any event, the marriage institution is the primary institution which governed the growth of our consititutional thinking (though most would laugh at that assertion).
Today, ignoring the assult upon this institution (especially via the pathway of neglecting to love your own wife, and respecting your own husband) seems to be the number one tactic among all current constitutional nullification tactics. There really is no 'assult' we are supposed to believe. And it is easy to believe this ......really .... given how few of us can honestly report the acquisition of that 'learning foundation'.
Psalm 11:3 should be heeded, in addition to the books above....
Good list. However, I must confess that I got as far as one-third through Thucydides. I got tired of reading about this little town and that little town invading each other or forming temporary alliances to attack another little town, all of them egged on by long-winded generals and war chiefs.
My apologies to the classicists here at FR, especially the Hellenists.