[Remedy]

• ED : Administration Cites Recent Surveys Showing Lack Of Basic Knowledge Of U.S. History
• ED : Senate Panel Hears that Ignorance of U.S. History Poses Major Security Threat
• ED : Give me Creation or give me PATRICK HENRY
• ED : New High School Curriculum Will Focus on Founding Fathers, Constitution
• ED : Putting the Teaching of American History and Civics back in the classroom
• High School Students' Attitudes Toward Creation And Evolution Compared To Their Worldview

[Remedy]

substitutions, rearrangement?

[AdamSelene235]

2. The Federalist Papers

Why did Hamilton conceal his authorship of the Federalist Papers?

Why did roughly half of the delegates to Constitutional Convention walk out?

Why did Patrick Henry when nominated to the Constitutional Convention refuse to attend saying, "Because I smelt a rat" ?

[goldstategop]

I agree. All of them save the Bible, are available in the world famous Penguin Classics paperback series of world literature. The most readable version of The Bible is Ernest Sutherland's famous 1936 classic The Bible: Designed And Arranged To Be Read As Living Literature. Both formats will introduce readers to the core works of Western civilization at a price they can afford. Sorry for the shameless plug here but that's how I encountered all of the above authors and its a pleasure to be able to read works that have affected our thinking and lives ever since.

[Alouette]

I would recommend replacing one of the Augustine works with Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed. Just as an aside, this great work was originally written in ARABIC.

[LonghornFreeper]

I agree with many of these, but this list is much to liberal arts oriented. If all students are going to read the ancient texts on politics, regardless of whether they apply to their major, then there is no reason all students should not read Newton's Principia and some of the works of Einstein, Copernicus, Euler, and other great scientists and mathmaticians. They are no harder to read or more boring for non-science majors than some of the chosen ten are for those who aren't political science or literature majors.

[FlatLandBeer]

Add the following:

Atlas Shrugged

The Road to Serfdom

Capitalism and Freedom

Free to Choose

[BillyBoy]

These guys don't seem to be fans of any books written in the last two centuries, do they? ;-) LOL. Since I'm just getting out of college now, here's all the books I've read out of their wish list:

The Bible
The Federalist Papers
The Divine Comedy, Part I: The Inferno
The Illiad
King Lear
Hamlet
Oedipus Trilogy, Parts I & III (nobody ever pays attention to II)
Animal Farm

All were required for various classes except the last one.

There are a couple on their list that I haven't read but would like to, such as "The Conservative Mind" and "A New Birth of Freedom".

Oddly enough, I was forced to read Ayn Rand in High School and hated it. I don't get all the Ayn Rand worshipers on this forum who says Rand "converted" them to conservative thought. I was conservative long before Rand and her novel Anthem put me to sleep, Orwell wrote on the same theme and did it much better instead of hitting you over the head with it. And the fact that she's a pro-abortion athetist doesn't endear me to her either.

[M Kehoe]

There are two in the list I haven't read: Confessions and City of God. I'll try and read them.

I would add one more text to the list and that is Atlas Shrugged.

5.56mm

[fishbabe]

of course,all you freepers are assuming these kids can read....and why should they waste their time when the liberal professor will tell them what to think and they will get a passing grade from that professor cuz they mouth his/her exact statements!!!!!!

[widowithfoursons]

It's telling that Marcus Tullius Cicero didn't even get an Honorable Mention. Crikey, when I took Latin in HS we had to translate Caesar's "Gallic Wars" as well as Cicero's "Republic". Guess they went out when Latin studies went out. But Cicero has my vote as the most important defender of the Republic ideal.

[I still care]

Bump for reference. Great thread.

[TheWillardHotel]

"When the nation's history is poorly taught in schools, ignored by the young, and rejected by qualified elders, awareness of the tradition consists only in wanting to destroy it."

Jacques Barzun: From Dawn to Decadence : 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present

[Alberta's Child]

No recommended reading list would be complete without the following titles:

1. Revolt of the Masses by Jose Ortega y Gassett
2. Wealth and Poverty by George Gilder
3. Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

[eastsider]

I thought you might be interested to learn that Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics made the Top 10! Way to go, Ari!

[Maigrey]

I guess I missed out on my liberal education, 'cause I've read part of 2 of them.

[SuzanneWeeks]

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

The Ends justify the Means.

Read it from cover to cover in 3 days.

[RonF]

Read the Federalist Papers. Then imagine, if you will, how successful you would be in influencing public opinion by writing and printing such essays today. Each one would have to be condenses into two or 3 paragraphs, or no one would read them. And the references to other classic works in them would never work at all.

Mind you, I'm a strong supporter of getting people to read the Federalist Papers; I'm just noting how times have changed.

[Quix]

Thanks.

Good to see such lists.

[narby]

Only 10 on the list?

I think they should read at least 100. They've got 4 years to do it.

[Carolina]

Posting the Honorable Mentions:

Honorable Mention

Natural Right and History
by Leo Strauss
38 points

The Conservative Mind
by Russell Kirk
36 points

A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War
by Harry V. Jaffa
33 points

Mere Christianity
by C.S. Lewis
32 points

The Illiad
by Homer
31 points

King Lear
by William Shakespeare
29 points

The Abolition of Man
by C.S. Lewis
27 points

Orthodoxy
by G.K. Chesterton
25 points

Aeneid
by Virgil
19 points

Hamlet
by William Shakespeare
18 points

Modern Times
by Paul Johnson
18 points

Oedipus Trilogy
by Sophocles
18 points

Ideas Have Consequences
by Richard Weaver
17 points

Idea of a University
by John Henry Newman
16 points

The Road to Serfdom
by Friedrich von Hayek
16 points

Animal Farm
by George Orwell
14 points

Gorgias
by Plato
14 points

A Humane Economy
by Wilhelm Roepke
14 points

The Public Philosophy
by Walter Lippman
14 points

The Roots of American Order
by Russell Kirk
14 points