Recommended Reading
Western Civilization and American Institutions Model Reading List
April 2004
Ancient World
- Logic, Rhetoric and Argumentation
Essential: an introductory logic textbook, Elements of Style (Strunk & White), “Politics and the English Language” (Orwell).- One or more of: Rulebook for Arguments (Weston), Modern American Usage (Follett), Trivium: The Liberal Arts (Joseph & McGlinn).
- One or more of: Rulebook for Arguments (Weston), Modern American Usage (Follett), Trivium: The Liberal Arts (Joseph & McGlinn).
- World Religions
Essential: the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the New Testament, Hindu Scriptures (especially the Bhagavad Gita), Buddhist Scriptures, Analects of Confucius, the Quran.
- Literature of Greece & Rome
Essential: Odyssey, Antigone (Sophocles), History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides), The Clouds (Aristophanes), Plutarch’s Lives, Aeneid (Virgil), De Officiis & De Republica (Cicero).- One or more of: Iliad, Theogony (Hesiod), Histories (Herodotus), Eumenides (Aeschylus),Orestia (Aeschylus), Oedipus cycle (Sophocles), Bacchae (Euripedes), The Clouds (Aristophanes), Medea (Euripedes), Metamorphoses (Ovid), Odes and Epodes (Horace), Meditations (Marcus Aurelius).
- One or more of: Iliad, Theogony (Hesiod), Histories (Herodotus), Eumenides (Aeschylus),Orestia (Aeschylus), Oedipus cycle (Sophocles), Bacchae (Euripedes), The Clouds (Aristophanes), Medea (Euripedes), Metamorphoses (Ovid), Odes and Epodes (Horace), Meditations (Marcus Aurelius).
- Ancient Philosophy: Plato & Aristotle
Essential: Apology, Republic (Plato), Nicomachean Ethics, Politics (Aristotle)- One or more of: Crito, Laches, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Meno, Phaedo, Symposium (Plato), Categories, Metaphysics (Aristotle).
Second year (medieval and renaissance):
- Religion and Western History
Essential: Confessions (Augustine), Consolation of Philosophy (Boethius), Talmud: Ethics of the Fathers, Guide for the Perplexed (Maimonides), Summa Theologica (Aquinas), Commentary on Romans and 95 Theses (Luther), Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, Institutes of Christian Religion (Calvin), Pensees (Pascal).- One or more of: Enchiridion, On Happiness or On the Free Choice of the Will (Augustine), On the Incarnation (Athanasius), Destruction of the Destruction (ibn Rushd), Cur Deus Homo or Monologion (Anselm), Autobiography of Teresa of Avila, Pilgrim's Progress (Bunyan), Table Talk (Luther), Speeches on Religion (Schleiermacher), Fear and Trembling (Kierkegaard), Essay on the Development of Doctrine (Newman).
- One or more of: Enchiridion, On Happiness or On the Free Choice of the Will (Augustine), On the Incarnation (Athanasius), Destruction of the Destruction (ibn Rushd), Cur Deus Homo or Monologion (Anselm), Autobiography of Teresa of Avila, Pilgrim's Progress (Bunyan), Table Talk (Luther), Speeches on Religion (Schleiermacher), Fear and Trembling (Kierkegaard), Essay on the Development of Doctrine (Newman).
- Medieval and Renaissance Literature
Essential: Divine Comedy (Dante), Canterbury Tales (Chaucer), two or three of Shakespeare's plays (especially King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet The Tempest, Merchant of Venice, Othello, or Henry IV, Part I), poetry by Donne.- One or more of: Beowulf, Essays (Montaigne), Don Quixote (Cervantes), Decameron (Boccaccio), Canzoniere (Petrarch), The Courtier (Castiglione), poetry of George Herbert
- One or more of: Beowulf, Essays (Montaigne), Don Quixote (Cervantes), Decameron (Boccaccio), Canzoniere (Petrarch), The Courtier (Castiglione), poetry of George Herbert
- Medieval and Modern Metaphysics
Essential: Summa Theologica, Part I, I (Aquinas), Discourse on Method (Descartes), Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke), Monadology (Leibniz), Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Hume), Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man (Reid).- One or more of: On Being and Essence or Disputed Questions on the Soul (Aquinas), Meditations (Descartes), Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (Hume), Discourse on Metaphysics (Leibniz).
- One or more of: On Being and Essence or Disputed Questions on the Soul (Aquinas), Meditations (Descartes), Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (Hume), Discourse on Metaphysics (Leibniz).
- Natural Law Tradition and its Critics
Essential: Summa Theologica -- Treatises on Happiness, Virtues & Laws (Aquinas), Abolition of Man (C. S. Lewis), Practical Principles, Moral Truth and Ultimate Ends (Grisez, Boyle & Finnis).- One or more of: Genealogy of Morals (Nietzsche), Five Sermons on Human Nature (Butler), Nature (J. S. Mill), Existentialism (Harper), Natural Law and Natural Rights (Finnis), After Virtue (MacIntyre), First Grace (Hittinger).
Third year (modern world)
- Modern Literary Masterworks
Essential: Paradise Lost (Milton), Faustus, Part I or Werther (Goethe), A Modest Proposal and Gulliver's Travels (Swift), Pride and Prejudice or Emma (Austen), Misanthrope (Moliere), Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky), plays by Gogol, Ibsen, Checkov or Shaw, poetry by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Burns, and Shelley.- Commended examples: Middlemarch (Eliot), Rasselas or essays by Samuel Johnson, Life of Johnson (Boswell), Pendennis or Vanity Fair (Thackeray), Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (Gibbon), Idea of the University (Newman), War and Peace or Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), Civilization and its Discontents (Freud), Heart of Darkness (Conrad), Great Expectations or Our Mutual Friend (Dickens), To the Lighthouse (Woolf), Return of the Native (Hardy), Madame Bovary (Flaubert), Flowers of Evil (Baudelaire), Underground Man (Dostoevesky), Dubliners (Joyce), Good Soldier (Ford), Dover Beach (Arnold), poetry by Hardy, Rosetti, and Yeats.
- Commended examples: Middlemarch (Eliot), Rasselas or essays by Samuel Johnson, Life of Johnson (Boswell), Pendennis or Vanity Fair (Thackeray), Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (Gibbon), Idea of the University (Newman), War and Peace or Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), Civilization and its Discontents (Freud), Heart of Darkness (Conrad), Great Expectations or Our Mutual Friend (Dickens), To the Lighthouse (Woolf), Return of the Native (Hardy), Madame Bovary (Flaubert), Flowers of Evil (Baudelaire), Underground Man (Dostoevesky), Dubliners (Joyce), Good Soldier (Ford), Dover Beach (Arnold), poetry by Hardy, Rosetti, and Yeats.
- Modern Political Theory
Essential: Prince (Machiavelli), Leviathan (Hobbes), Spirit of the Laws (Montesquieu), Second Treatise of Government (Locke), Utilitarianism and On Liberty (J. S. Mill), Reflections on the Revolution in France (Burke), Communist Manifesto (Marx & Engels).- One or more of: Discourses (Machiavelli), Treatise of Human Nature, Book III (Hume), First Letter on Toleration (Locke), Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant), Second Discourse - On Inequality, On the Polish Constitution or The Social Contract (Rousseau), Theory of Moral Sentiments (Adam Smith), Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Bentham), Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Stephen), English Constitution (Bagehot), Vindication of the Rights of Women (Wollstonecraft), A Theory of Justice (Rawls).
- One or more of: Discourses (Machiavelli), Treatise of Human Nature, Book III (Hume), First Letter on Toleration (Locke), Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant), Second Discourse - On Inequality, On the Polish Constitution or The Social Contract (Rousseau), Theory of Moral Sentiments (Adam Smith), Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Bentham), Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Stephen), English Constitution (Bagehot), Vindication of the Rights of Women (Wollstonecraft), A Theory of Justice (Rawls).
- Markets and Business: Theory and Practice
Essential: Wealth of Nations (A. Smith), Fable of the Bees (Mandeville), Rerum Novarum (Leo XIII), Economics in One Lesson (Hazlitt), Road to Serfdom (Hayek).- Commended examples: Economic and Phlosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (Marx), General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Keynes), Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (Schumpeter), Essays (Weber), Worldly Philosophers (Heilbroner), Free to Choose (Friedman), Servile State (Belloc), Moral Foundations of Civil Society (Roepke), Equality, the Third World and Economic Delusion (Bauer), Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Morgenstern & von Neumann).
- Commended examples: Economic and Phlosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (Marx), General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Keynes), Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (Schumpeter), Essays (Weber), Worldly Philosophers (Heilbroner), Free to Choose (Friedman), Servile State (Belloc), Moral Foundations of Civil Society (Roepke), Equality, the Third World and Economic Delusion (Bauer), Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Morgenstern & von Neumann).
- Rise of Science
Essential: Dialogues (Galileo), Novum Organon (Bacon), Origin of the Species or The Voyage of the Beagle (Darwin), Special and General Theories or The Evolution of Physics (Einstein), or On Relativity (Eddington, Lorentz, Einstein, Minkowski, Weyl)- Commended examples: The Advancement of Learning (Bacon), To Save the Phenomena (Duhem), Science and the Modern World (Whitehead), Copernican Revolution (Kuhn), Philosophy of Science (Hempel), Men of Mathematics (Eric T. Bell), Cambridge Companion to Newton, Newton’s Clock: Chaos in the Solar System (Peterson), Great Scientific Experiments (Harre), Double Helix (Watson & Crick), Wonderful Life (Gould), Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Burtt), Rise of Early Modern Science (Huff), Structure of Matter (Rice & Teller), Physics and Beyond (Heisenberg), Electro-Magnetic Theory (Heaviside), Nature of the Chemical Bond (Pauling), Ideas and Information (Penzias), Theories of Scientific Method (Blake, Ducasse & Madden), essays by Planck, Bohr.
Senior year (American experience)
- Religion in American Life
Essential: Democracy in America (Toqueville), American Puritans (Perry Miller).- Commended examples: Jonathan Edwards (Marsden), Culture Wars (Hunter), Naked Public Square (Neuhaus), American Religion (Bloom), Faith and Freedom (Hart), Political Sermons of the American Founding Period (Sandoz), America's God (Noll), Invitation to Lead (Tokunaga).
- Commended examples: Jonathan Edwards (Marsden), Culture Wars (Hunter), Naked Public Square (Neuhaus), American Religion (Bloom), Faith and Freedom (Hart), Political Sermons of the American Founding Period (Sandoz), America's God (Noll), Invitation to Lead (Tokunaga).
- American Letters
Essential: Last of the Mohicans (Cooper), Moby Dick or Billy Budd (Melville), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain), Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne), Waste Land (Eliot), Nature and other essays (Emerson), Walden (Thoreau), Murder in the Rue Morgue (Poe), Cooper Union speech (Lincoln), poetry by Longfellow, Dickinson, Emerson, Ransom, Frost, Eliot.- Commended examples: Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (Holmes), Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (Bierce), My Antonia (Cather), A Good Man is Hard to Find (O’Connor), Four Quartets (Eliot), Invisible Man (Ellison), American Scholar (Emerson), Education of Henry Adams or Democracy (H. Adams), Portrait of a Lady or Wings of the Dove (H. James), Babbitt (S. Lewis), Light in August or God Down, Moses (Faulkner), All the King’s Men (Warren).
- Commended examples: Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (Holmes), Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (Bierce), My Antonia (Cather), A Good Man is Hard to Find (O’Connor), Four Quartets (Eliot), Invisible Man (Ellison), American Scholar (Emerson), Education of Henry Adams or Democracy (H. Adams), Portrait of a Lady or Wings of the Dove (H. James), Babbitt (S. Lewis), Light in August or God Down, Moses (Faulkner), All the King’s Men (Warren).
- Principles of the American Founding
Essential: Federalist Papers (Madison, Hamilton, Jay), Anti-Federalist Papers (ed. Storing), Notes on the State of Virginia (Jefferson),- One or more of: Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition (ed., Kendall), The American Republic (Brownson), Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission (Mayhew), Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State (Driesbach), Crisis of a Nation Divided or New Birth of Freedom (Harry V. Jaffa).
- One or more of: Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition (ed., Kendall), The American Republic (Brownson), Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission (Mayhew), Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State (Driesbach), Crisis of a Nation Divided or New Birth of Freedom (Harry V. Jaffa).
- American History: Leadership from the Revolution to the Present
Essential: Narrative (Douglass), Letter from Birmingham Jail (King), Founding Father: Rediscovering Washington (Brookhiser), Up from Slavery (Booker T. Washington), Witness (Chambers), Autobiography (Franklin),- Commended examples: American Political Tradition (Hofstadter), My Years at General Motors (Sloan), Autobiography of Samuel Gompers, The Civil War (Shelby Foote), The Myth of the Robber Barons (Folsom), Modern Times (Paul Johnson), The Right Stuff (Tom Wolfe), Gospel of Wealth (Carnegie), My Life and Work (Henry Ford), Speeches - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Memoirs, vol. 1 -- Year of Decisions (Truman), Tuesday Cabinet (Graff), Great Plains (Webb), Technology in America (Marcus & Sullivan), Present at the Creation (Acheson).
- Commended examples: American Political Tradition (Hofstadter), My Years at General Motors (Sloan), Autobiography of Samuel Gompers, The Civil War (Shelby Foote), The Myth of the Robber Barons (Folsom), Modern Times (Paul Johnson), The Right Stuff (Tom Wolfe), Gospel of Wealth (Carnegie), My Life and Work (Henry Ford), Speeches - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Memoirs, vol. 1 -- Year of Decisions (Truman), Tuesday Cabinet (Graff), Great Plains (Webb), Technology in America (Marcus & Sullivan), Present at the Creation (Acheson).
- American Social and Political History
Essential: American Experience (Boorstin), Significance of the Frontier in American History (Turner), Theory of the Leisure Class (Veblen).- Commended examples: History of the American People (Paul Johnson), Brown Decades (Mumford), How the Other Half Lives (Riis), Gilded Age (Twain & Warner), Managerial Revolution (J. Burnham), 1939: Lost World of the Fair (Gelernter), Devil in the White City (Larson), Naked Nomads (Gilder), Civil War (Foote).