Posted on 05/30/2003 11:45:30 AM PDT by Remedy
The editors of HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 28 distinguished scholars and university professors to serve as judges in developing a list of Ten Books Every Student Should Read in College.
To derive the list, each scholar first nominated titles. When all the nominations were collected-they amounted to more than 100 titles-HUMAN EVENTS then sent a ballot to the scholars asking each to list his or her Top Ten selections. A book was awarded ten points for receiving a No. 1 rating, 9 points for receiving a No. 2 rating, and so on. The ten books with the highest aggregate ratings made the list. We have also compiled an Honorable Mention list.
Interestingly enough, the No. 1 book our judges decided every college student should read is a volume that has been virtually banned in public schools by the United States Supreme Court. 1. The Bible Score: 116
Written: c. 1446 B.C. to c. A.D. 95
The Bible, the central work of Western Civilization, defines the relationship between God and man, and forms the foundation of faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yet, today it is virtually banned in America's public primary and secondary schools-meaning many American students may not encounter the most important book of all time in a classroom setting until they reach college. 2. The Federalist Papers Score: 106
Authors: Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
Written: October 1787 to May 1788
Written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, The Federalist Papers first appeared in several New York state newspapers as a series of 85 essays published under the nom de plume "Publius" from the fall of 1787 to the spring of 1788.
The purpose of The Federalist Papers was to garner support for the newly created Constitution. At the time the states were bound together under the Articles of Confederation, but the weakness of the Articles necessitated the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Once the Constitution was drafted, nine states were required to ratify it, so Hamilton, Jay, and Madison took up the effort to persuade skeptics. Because Hamilton and Madison were both members of the Constitutional Convention, their writings are instructive in divining the original intent of those who drafted the Constitution.
According to the Library of Congress, the first bound edition of The Federalist Papers was published in 1788 with revisions and corrections by Hamilton. A bound edition with revisions and corrections by Madison published in 1818 was the first to identify the authors of each essay. 3. Democracy in America Score: 80
Author: Alexis de Tocqueville
Written: 1835
A left-leaning Frenchman who visited America in 1831, de Tocqueville produced an incisive portrait of American political and social life in the early 19th Century. He praised the democratic ideals and private virtues of the American people but warned against what he saw as the tyrannical tendency of public opinion. Visiting during the heyday of slavery, de Tocqueville foresaw the troubles racial questions would pose for the country. He also was early in observing that judicial power had a tendency to usurp the political in the United States. He also wrote of the difficulties inherent in the egalitarian sentiment then gaining strength in America. "However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit," he said. 4. The Divine Comedy Score: 57
Author: Dante Alighieri
Written: A.D. 1306-1321
One of the most frequently cited poems of all time, this epic allegory is an amalgam of Dante's views of science, theology, astronomy, and philosophy. In it Dante recounts his imaginary journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, during which he realizes his hatred for his sin and becomes a changed man by the grace of God.
The work contains three sections-"Inferno," "Purgatorio," and "Paradiso." In "Inferno," Dante journeys through Hell, led by the soul of the Roman poet Virgil. He describes Hell as a funnel-shaped pit divided into nine circles, each one a place for those people guilty of a particular sin, with suffering increasing as he descends to the bottom where Satan himself dwells.
In "Purgatorio," Dante travels with Virgil up the Mount of Purgatory. Ten terraces make up the Mount and the process of purification for its occupants is arduous as they climb from terrace to terrace. When Dante and Virgil pass the final terrace, they glimpse Paradise where Beatrice, Dante's first love, awaits and Virgil is forced to depart.
In "Paradiso," Beatrice guides Dante through the various levels of Paradise. At the highest level, Empyrean, where God, Mary, and many of the angels and saints abide, Dante views the light of God, which leaves him speechless and changed. 5. The Republic Score: 55
Author: Plato
Written: c. 360 B.C.
The Republic is likely the most important work of the most important and influential philosopher who ever lived. The writings of Plato, a disciple of Socrates in ancient Athens, provide the foundation of abstract thought for all of Western Civilization, and The Republic contains expositions of various theories of justice, the state and society, and the soul. Is justice a matter of being helpful to those who help you and harmful to those who harm you? Or is it simply the "interest of the stronger," defined by those who govern the rest of us, as post-modern leftists would have it? How should society be organized? How is the human soul structured? How may we arrive at truth? The first author in history to deal with such questions in systematic rational argument, Plato contrasts the ideal society with reality in a way later echoed in the City of God (No. 7) by St. Augustine-who explored his own soul in his Confessions (No. 9). Plato describes the first totalitarian utopia as part of his argument, the first of many thinkers to do so. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought." 6. The Politics Score: 54
Author: Aristotle
Written: Fourth Century, B.C.
Aristotle, the most famous student of Plato, is one of the few men who managed to be highly appreciated both in his own time (he was hired to tutor Alexander the Great) and by posterity. His philosophy continues to form the backbone of Western thought. Much of his writing was lost for centuries, but its recovery helped Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th Century, and later political philosophers, develop the concept of natural law that became central to the Anglo-American understanding of just and limited government. Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson cited Aristotle as an inspiration for the Declaration of Independence.
In the Politics, Aristotle examines the formation and composition of civil society more simply and effectively than perhaps anyone since. Beginning with a complete accounting of the elements in the basic unit of society-the oikos or family home-the philosopher expands outward to discuss the larger unit of human existence, the city-state-or polis-in the same terms. 7. Nicomachaean Ethics Score: 52
Author: Aristotle
Written: Fourth Century, B.C.
The Ethics is a collection of notes from Aristotle's lectures, taken by his student Nicomachus. The Ethics' elegant inductive arguments, developed hundreds of years before the Christian era, proved that man can indeed understand the basic concepts of good and evil without the aid of Divine Revelation-a fact that many leftists are unwilling to accept in their quest to destroy respect for objective rules of right and wrong.
Unlike today's secularists, Aristotle saw clearly that all human beings have a built-in need to pursue happiness through behaving properly. Aristotle analyzes why not all human actions lead to happiness, and reveals how a man's daily choices between good and evil result in the habits of virtue or vice. Virtuous action, he concludes, makes men happy, whereas vice does not. 7. City of God Score: 52
Author: St. Augustine of Hippo
Written: A.D. 413-426
The City of God ranks as history's most influential writing by a theologian. Augustine, the cultured bishop of an ancient Roman city in North Africa, created a philosophy of history that answered the argument of pagans who blamed the decline of Rome on the rise of Christianity. (Rome had first been sacked in 410.) Augustine explained human history in terms of Divine Providence and asserted that the Church would bring human history to its final consummation. At that consummation, the two "cities" that remained intermingled on Earth-the pure, virtuous city of God and the sinful, flawed city of man-would be separated into two. Augustine argued that the sinful practices of the pagan Romans helped prompt God to allow the Eternal City's capture by barbarians. Augustine firmly implants teleology-the Aristotelian idea that all things have an ultimate purpose-into history just as previous Christian thinkers had adopted teleology to explain God's plan for individual human beings. For Augustine, all of human history points toward a divine purpose. 9. Confessions Score: 47
Author: St. Augustine of Hippo
Written: c. A.D. 400
The Confessions is Augustine's spiritual autobiography. Addressed to God, the book bares the author's soul. Here Augustine explains the history of his life in terms of Divine Providence, much as in the City of God he explained the history of Rome. He owns up to the sins that pulled him away from faith despite the exertions of his intensely devout mother, St. Monica. In the course of describing both his exterior and interior life, Augustine reiterates the Christian philosophy of the human person expounded by St. Paul in his epistles. He describes the interplay among passion, will, and reason and attempts to explain why men do evil when they know better. 10. Reflections on the Revolution in France Score: 44
Author: Edmund Burke
Written: 1790
An Irish-born British politician of the late 18th Century, who was popular in America because of his opposition to taxing the colonies, Burke holds a prominent place in the history of English-speaking conservatives. Indeed, in The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk singled him out as the first modern conservative intellectual.
Burke's early and energetic disapproval of the French Revolution proved prophetic in light of the Reign of Terror that followed. A champion of the inherent wisdom of long-settled traditions, Burke argued that by violently ripping up their nation's institutions root and branch, the French had assured themselves years of chaos.
If changes had to be made in France, he argued, could not the tried-and-true be kept and only the bad discarded? "Is it, then, true," he asked, "that the French government was such as to be incapable or undeserving of reform, so that it was of absolute necessity that the whole fabric should be at once pulled down and the area cleared for the erection of a theoretic, experimental edifice in its place?"
5.56mm
And I certainly know the difference between the greatest leaders America ever produced: Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Marshall and their trivial opponents whose names will become more obscure as the ages and the glory of their antagonists progress.
Hamilton and Madison were so far above the antis it is laughable. The document they produced and implemented is the greatest political work ever conceived by man. Federalist is the greatest work of policical science in the last millenium at least, no, make it the last two millenia.
I agere with all except the underlined statements, which reveal extreme and unwarranted predudice. Would the Federalist papers be the great work that they are without having to deal with anti-fed arguments. Would there even be a BILL OF RIGHTS WITHOUT HENRY?
Rights: Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention A Bill of Rights
NARA | Exhibit Hall | The Founding Fathers
The original states, except Rhode Island, collectively appointed 70 individuals to the Constitutional Convention, but a number did not accept or could not attend. Those who did not attend included Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Samuel Adams and, John Hancock.
In all, 55 delegates attended the Constitutional Convention sessions, but only 39 actually signed the Constitution. The delegates ranged in age from Jonathan Dayton, aged 26, to Benjamin Franklin, aged 81, who was so infirm that he had to be carried to sessions in a sedan chair. You can also read a general biographical overview of the delegates.
Patrick Henry, lawyer, patriot, and orator, was a living symbol of the American struggle for liberty and self-government. From the day in 1760 when he appeared in Williamsburg to take his attorney's examination before Robert Carter Nicholas, Edmund Pendleton, John and Peyton Randolph, and George Wythe, Patrick Henry's story is inseparable from the stream of Virginia history.
OFFICES HELD: Delegate, Virginia House of Burgesses, 1765-1775; Member, Virginia Committee of Correspondence, 1773; Delegate, Continental Congress, 1774-1775; Delegate, Virginia Convention, 1776; Governor of Virginia, 1776-1779, 1784-1786; Delegate, Virginia Constitution Ratification Convention, 1788
MISCELLANEOUS: Patrick Henry was one of the most outspoken opponents of the Stamp Act. On May 29, 1765, he introduced seven radical resolutions in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Five of the seven resolutions were adopted on May 30, though one was reconsidered the next day (after Henry's departure) and removed.
In May 1774, a message from the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence informed Virginians of the closing of the port of Boston. The Virginia House of Burgesses set aside June 1, 1774, as a day of "Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer" in support of the citizens of Boston. Governor Dunmore dissolved the assembly, but 89 of the Burgesses gathered at the Raleigh Tavern and, under Henry's leadership, proposed that all the colonies meet in a Continental congress.
In April 1775, shortly after news reached Virginia that American colonists had clashed with British troops in Lexington, Massachusetts, Henry learned that Governor Dunmore had seized gunpowder from the Magazine in Williamsburg. Henry collected the militia of Hanover County and marched toward Williamsburg. He sent a message to the governor demanding that the gunpowder be returned to representatives of the colony. Governor Dunmore paid the Virginians money equal to the value of the powder, then issued a proclamation outlawing "a certain Patrick Henry" for disturbing the peace of the colony.
Animal Farm
got honorable mention.Why only 10?
Frivolous Courses Pervasive at Top American Colleges Despite the failure of Karl Marx's economic theories, courses devoted to him curiously abound in literature, sociology, anthropology and a host of other areas that Marx paid very little attention to while he was alive. A sampling of courses that students can choose from include Amherst's "Taking Marx Seriously," Duke's "Marxism and Society," UC-Santa Barbara's "Black Marxism," Rutgers's "Marxist Literary Theory," and Wisconsin's "Marxism and the Black Experience." Marx's theories may be dead in Eastern Europe, but they are alive and well on American college campuses.
Bizarre Classes Proliferate on America's 'Elite' Campuses Marxism, environmentalism, homosexuality, multiculturalism, and feminism now dominate the curricula of many elite colleges and universities. Critics contend that these areas of study are often intellectually vacuous, politically-charged, or both.
Pedophilia 101 at Cornell Students at Cornell University are used to courses like "Spike Lee Films," "Concepts of Race and Racism," "Whose Families? Whose Values?," "Domestic Television," "Music and Queer Identity," and "Introduction to Sexual Minorities."
Indeed, as Campus Report has chronicled, even the most cursory perusal of the Ithaca, New York school's course catalog reveals a burgeoning curriculum of frivolous, politically-charged, and downright bizarre classes. The university's administration, engaged in an indefatigable crusade for "diversity," has given free reign to the faculty to incorporate its every radical whim and every extreme agenda into the classroom. The results have been striking. There are courses at Cornell that artfully breach every imaginable-and many unimaginable-standard of most students.
One recent offering, however, has crossed the threshold from the merely absurd to the potentially dangerous.
The syllabus for "The Sexual Child" reads like a veritable who's-who of pro-pedophilia academics and activists. Among the authors presented in the course are Theo Sandfort, formerly on the board of directors of Paidika, a pro-pedophilia magazine based in Amsterdam; Daniel Tsang, the author of AIDS Taboo, purports to deliver an "academic" analysis of pedophilia; Pat Califia, a self-proclaimed "sexual outlaw" and author of the essay "The Age of Consent: The Great Kiddy-Porn Panic of '77" and the book Macho Sluts; and Havelock Ellis, author of "The School Friendships of Girls" and a reputed eugenicist.
Other than Gilder, excellent additions.
How About having them all read the Constitution then they could read the books that made it possible
Only half would vote for Constitution
Sigh -- sometimes I think I'm about the only person who recognizes that the characters in Atlas Shrugged as as they are because the book is an *allegory*.
I have no argument with the point of the book but it is not significant enough to even consider on a list like this.
On the contrary, it deserves a spot on a list like this not because it's a fine example of flowing English prose (although it is quite good for an author whose first language was not English), but because it lays out the consequences and motivations of socialism in a comprehensive way that has never been equaled before or since. Like "1984" did for totalitarian communism, no non-fiction essay could cover the same issues and bring it home, in human terms (both in the toll on lives and the human characteristics which bring them about) as well as an insightful novel could.
The "two minute hate" scene in "1984" explains more about propagandistic scapegoatism than any amount of non-fiction discussion of the topic. And likewise for countless scenes in "Atlas Shrugged".
Like Aesop's fables (themselves allegories as well), a properly set up fictional scenario imparts more understanding in a few paragraphs than entire books of philosophy (including Rand's own philosophy books, which are dry, windy, and dull). This is why "Atlas Shrugged" is a "must read" -- it contains *countless* lessons about socialism and other forms of human enslavement (including the voluntary kinds), as well as ways to break the cycle.
I've lost count of the number of people who have suddenly "gotten" conservative economic philosophy after reading this book.
Look at the skill difference between Orwell and Rand. No comparison imo. And G.O. says it all in 1/3 the length.
Similar messages, but *not* identical. "1984" focuses mostly on the totalitarianism itself. A lesser attention is paid to the economic aspects, and what is covered is pure communism. Nor is there much attempt to cover how the society became so enslaved in the first place. "Atlas Shrugged", on the other hand, covers *socialism* (and no, that's not identical to communism), and more importantly, how it attempts to creep into and take over capitalism with smiling promises of being more "fair" when it is anything but. After reading "Atlas Shrugged", the reader will be well innoculated against the was that socialism tries to worm its way into, and take over, capitalism -- and why such "reasonable" changes must be fought tooth and nail.
Try Henrietta Mears What the Bible is All About or John R.W. Stott Understanding the Bible
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