A Very Claremont Christmas 2004 (Conservative scholars recommend their favorite books)

The Claremont Institute ^ | December 15, 2004

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Reference Ping.

[TChris]

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[Stoat]

The Britannica Store  (Great Books of the Western World)

Ten Year Reading Plan

Great Books of the Western World

First Edition, 1952

Ten Year Reading Plan

Following is a ten year reading plan provided in the Great Books of the Western World first edition library of 1952. The works are organized by the year that they appear in the reading plan. Works shown with hypertext links are available online. Another such list is maintained by Ken Roberts.

The great books index is a personal interest project and is not sponsored by the Encyclopedia Britannica corporation. I urge you to purchase this excellent set of books and patronize this company.

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Year One

• Aristophanes - The Clouds
   
• Aristophanes - The Lysistrata
   
• Plato - Apology
   
• Plato - Crito
   
• Plato - The Republic
   
• Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
   
• Aristotle - Politics
   
• Plutarch - The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
   
  • Lycurgus
     
  • Numa Pompilius
     
  • Lycurgus and Numa Compared
     
  • Alexander
     
  • Caesar
     
• Saint Augustine - The Confessions
   
• Nicolo Machiavelli - The Prince
   
• Francois Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel
   
• Michel Eyquem de Montaigne - Essays
   
• William Shakespeare - Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
   
• John Locke - Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay
   
• Jean Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right
   
• Adam Smith - An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
   
• Edward Gibbon - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
   
• American State Papers - The Declaration of Independence
   
• American State Papers - Articles of Confederation
   
• American State Papers - The Constitution of the United States of America
   
• Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay - The Federalist
   
• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - Manifesto of the Communist Party
   

Year Two

• The New Testament - Matthew, Acts
• Homer - The Iliad
   
• Aeschylus - Agamemnon
   
• Aeschylus - Eumenides
   
• Aeschylus - Choephoroe
   
• Sophocles - Oedipus the King
   
• Sophocles - Antigone
   
• Herodotus - The History
   
• Plato - Meno
   
• Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
   
• Aristotle - On Poetics
   
• Nicomachus of Gerasa - Introduction to Arithmetic
   
• Lucretius - On the Nature of Things
   
• Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - The Meditations
   
• Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan, or, Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil
   
• John Milton - Areopagitica
   
• Blaise Pascal - Pensees
   
• Blaise Pascal - Treatise on the Arithmetical Triangle
   
• Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels
   
• Jean Jacques Rousseau - A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
   
• Immanuel Kant - Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals
   
• John Stuart Mill - On Liberty
   

Year Three

• Aeschylus - Prometheus Bound
   
• Herodotus - The History
   
• Thucydides - The History of the Peloponnesian War
   
• Plato - Statesman
   
• Aristotle - Politics
   
• Aristotle - On Interpretation
   
• Euclid - The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements
   
• P. Cornelius Tacitus - The Annals
   
• Saint Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica
   
• Geoffrey Chaucer - Troilus and Cressida
   
• William Shakespeare - Macbeth
   
• John Milton - Paradise Lost
   
• John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
   
• Antoine Laurent Lavoisier - Elements of Chemistry
   
• Immanuel Kant - The Science of Right
   
• John Stuart Mill - Representative Government
   
• Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
   
• Sigmund Freud - The Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis
   

Year Four

• Euripides - Medea
   
• Euripides - Hippolytus
   
• Euripides - The Trojan Women
   
• Euripides - The Bacchantes
   
• Plato - The Republic
   
• Plato - Theaetetus
   
• Aristotle - Physics
   
• Saint Augustine - The Confessions
   
• Galileo Galilei - Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences
   
• Sir Francis Bacon - Novum Organum: Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man
   
• Rene Descartes - Discourse on the Method
   
• Sir Isaac Newton - Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
   
• John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
   
• David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
   
• Immanuel Kant - The Critique of Pure Reason
   
• Herman Melville - Moby Dick; or, The Whale
   
• Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
   
• William James - The Principles of Psychology
   

Year Five

• Hippocrates - The Oath
   
• Hippocrates - On Ancient Medicine
   
• Hippocrates - On Airs, Waters, and Places
   
• Hippocrates - Of the Epidemics
   
• Hippocrates - The Law
   
• Hippocrates - On the Sacred Disease
   
• Plato - Phaedo
   
• Aristotle - Categories
   
• Aristotle - On the Soul
   
• Galen - On the Natural Faculties
   
• Plotinus - The Six Enneads
   
• Virgil - The Aeneid
   
• Ptolemy - The Almagest
   
• Nicolaus Copernicus - On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
   
• Johannes Kepler - Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
   
• Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy
   
• William Harvey - On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
   
• Miguel de Cervantes - The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha
   
• Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics
   
• George Berkeley - The Principles of Human Knowledge
   
• Immanuel Kant - The Critique of Pure Reason
   
• Charles Darwin - The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
   
• Count Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace
   
• William James - The Principles of Psychology
   

Year Six

• The Old Testament - Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy
• Homer - The Odyssey
• Plato - Laws
   
• Aristotle - Metaphysics
   
• Plotinus - The Six Enneads
   
• P. Cornelius Tacitus - The Histories
   
• Saint Augustine - The City of God
   
• Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy
   
• William Shakespeare - As You Like It
   
• William Shakespeare - The Comedy of Errors
   
• William Shakespeare - The Taming of the Shrew
   
• William Shakespeare - Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
   
• Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics
   
• John Milton - Samson Agonistes
   
• Blaise Pascal - The Provincial Letters
   
• John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
   
• Edward Gibbon - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
   
• Immanuel Kant - The Critique of Pure Reason
   
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - The Philosophy of History
   
• Count Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace
   

Year Seven

• The Old Testament - Job, Isaiah, Amos
• Plato - Symposium
   
• Plato - Philebus
   
• Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
   
• Archimedes - On the Equilibrium of Planes
   
• Archimedes - The Sand-Reckoner
   
• Archimedes - On Floating Bodies
   
• Archimedes - Measurement of a Circle
• Epictetus - The Discourses
   
• Plotinus - The Six Enneads
   
• Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy
   
• Francois Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel
   
• William Shakespeare - Antony and Cleopatra
   
• William Shakespeare - Julius Caesar
   
• Galileo Galilei - Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences
   
• Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics
   
• Sir Isaac Newton - Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
   
• Sir Isaac Newton - Optics
   
• Christiaan Huygens - Treatise on Light
   
• Immanuel Kant - The Critique of Practical Reason
   
• Immanuel Kant - The Critique of Judgement
   
• John Stuart Mill - Utilitarianism
   

Year Eight

• Aristophanes - The Thesmophoriazusae
   
• Aristophanes - The Ecclesiazusae
   
• Aristophanes - The Plutus
   
• Plato - Gorgias
   
• Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
   
• Aristotle - Rhetoric
   
• Saint Augustine - On Christian Doctrine
   
• Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan, or, Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil
   
• William Shakespeare - Othello, the Moor of Venice
   
• William Shakespeare - King Lear
   
• Sir Francis Bacon - On the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Humane
   
• Rene Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy
   
• Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics
   
• John Locke - A Letter Concerning Toleration
   
• Laurence Sterne - The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent.
   
• Jean Jacques Rousseau - A Discourse on Political Economy
   
• Adam Smith - An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
   
• James Boswell - The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
   
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Faust
   
• Karl Marx - Capital
   
• William James - The Principles of Psychology
   

Year Nine

• Thucydides - The History of the Peloponnesian War
   
• Plato - Sophist
   
• Aristotle - Politics
   
• Apollonius of Perga - On Conic Sections
   
• Saint Augustine - The City of God
   
• William Gilbert - On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
   
• Rene Descartes - Rules for the Direction of the Mind
   
• Rene Descartes - The Geometry
   
• Blaise Pascal - Account of the Great Experiment Concerning the Equilibrium of Fluids
   
• Blaise Pascal - On Geometrical Demonstration
   
• Henry Fielding - The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
   
• Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu - The Spirit of Laws
   
• Michael Faraday - Experimental Researches in Electricity
   
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - The Philosophy of Right
   
• Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier - Analytical Theory of Heat
   
• Karl Marx - Capital
   
• Sigmund Freud - Civilization and Its Discontents
   

Year Ten

• The New Testament - Mark, Luke, John, Romans, I Cornthians
• Sophocles - Ajax
   
• Sophocles - Electra
   
• Plato - Timaeus
   
• Aristotle - On the Parts of Animals
   
• Aristotle - On the Generation of Animals
   
• Lucretius - On the Nature of Things
   
• Virgil - The Eclogues
   
• Virgil - The Georgics
   
• Saint Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica
   
• Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales
   
• William Shakespeare - The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
   
• William Shakespeare - The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth
   
• William Shakespeare - The Life of King Henry the Fifth
   
• William Shakespeare - The Tragedy of King Richard the Second
   
• William Harvey - On the Generation of Animals
   
• Miguel de Cervantes - The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha
   
• Immanuel Kant - The Critique of Judgement
   
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Faust
   
• Charles Darwin - The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
   
• Karl Marx - Capital
   
• Sigmund Freud - A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis
   
• William James - The Principles of Psychology

[Libertina]

Hey Stoat, you reader you! LOL Love Steyn! Thank you for the listings :) BUMP!

[Stoat]

Hey Stoat, you reader you! LOL Love Steyn! Thank you for the listings :) BUMP!

(((BLUSHING))))

You're quite welcome; I'm delighted that you find it helpful  :-)

[Libertina]

Stoat, I do believe your little guy has donned his festive, white winter coat! :)

[Stoat]

Stoat, I do believe your little guy has donned his festive, white winter coat! :)

From my rusty, dusty, but ever-so-trusty Encarta Reference Library:

"Ermine, name given to various species of weasel, particularly during the winter season, when the fur of individuals inhabiting colder latitudes is white. The name is applied especially to the stoat, which inhabits temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, North America, and Asia."

 

[Libertina]

Careful, my mom has a couple of stone martins around a coat collar... ;)

[185JHP]

BUMP

[Stoat]

From Thomas Sowell:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1303307/posts

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

THE MOON IS DOWN

-John Steinbeck

THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST

-Tom Wolfe

HETEROPHOBIA

-Daphne Patai

-THE CASTLE

-FRANZ KAFKA

Rhinoceros

-Eugene Ionesco

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Any military history written by Keegan is worth reading, of course, but "The Second World War" is one of his better works.

Another great summary of that epic conflict is,

DELIVERED FROM EVIL:

The Saga of World War II.

It's billed as "The first one-volume history" of the Second World War, and is definitely worth checking out, if you have the opportunity.

[lainde]

Thanks for the NR list!

[capitan_refugio]

Make that "visiting" professor - she was not the staff - and she apparently has a "new assignment" in the "state" system!

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

NIXON: A Life

-Jonathan Aitken

EXTREME ISLAM

-Adam Parfey

Sir Walter Raleigh

-Raleigh Trevelyan

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/~sunkenciv/

[Pagey]

Peter Schweizer, a Hoover Institution research fellow, wrote a book a couple of years ago called, "Reagan's War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism."

This book may well well force historians to revise the history of the Cold War.

[Pagey]

Wilhelm Reich wrote a brilliant book called "The Mass Psychology Of Fascism".

[Stoat]

Careful, my mom has a couple of stone martins around a coat collar... ;)

Note to self: remember to wear 'ferret disguise' when in the presence of Libertina's mom

[Stoat]

Thanks so much for your many great-looking contributions to the ongoing list here :-)