Reading
From the January 2021 to the end of 2022 I am reading a selection of the "Great Books" of the Western Canon.
The list below is compiled from several sources, and marked as follows:
- ๐งญ: Interintellect: Reading the Greats Salon Series
- ๐: Open Yale: Introduction to Political Philosophy
- ๐ซ: Yale Directed Studies Historical and Political Thought
- ๐: Talking Politics Podcast: History of Ideas
I have also added some more books, inspired by Tommy Collison's Great Books list, conversations with friends, and personal interest.
Here is the list:
- (Anon): Beowulf ๐งญ
- Aquinas: Treatise on Law ๐ซ
- Arendt: The Human Condition ๐
- Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism ๐ซ
- Aristotle: Politics ๐๐ซ
- Augustine: The City of God ๐ซ
- Austen: Pride and Prejudice ๐งญ
- Boswell: The Life of Johnson
- Brecht: Mother Courage and Her Children ๐งญ
- Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France ๐งญ๐ซ
- Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales ๐งญ
- Constant: The Liberty of the Ancients ๐
- Dante: Inferno ๐งญ
- Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy ๐งญ
- Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folks ๐ซ
- Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth ๐
- Fukuyama: The End of History and the Last Man ๐
- Gandhi: Hind Swaraj ๐
- Hayek: The Road to Serfdom ๐
- Herodotus: The History ๐ซ
- Hobbes: Leviathan ๐๐ซ๐
- Homer: Iliad ๐งญ
- Homer: The Odyssey
- Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature
- Huxley: Brave New World ๐งญ
- Kant: Perpetual Peace and other Essays ๐ซ
- Livy: The Rise of Rome ๐ซ
- Locke: Second Treatise of Government ๐๐ซ
- MacKinnon: Towards a Femenist Theory of the State ๐
- Machiavelli: The Prince ๐งญ๐๐ซ
- Marx: Communist Manifesto ๐
- Marx: Selected Writings ๐ซ
- Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morals ๐ซ
- Orwell: 1984 ๐งญ
- Plato: Meno, Laches and other Dialogues
- Plato: Republic ๐
- Plato: The Last Days of Socrates ๐งญ๐๐ซ
- Rousseau: Political Writings ๐๐ซ
- Shakespeare: Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Richard III, Henry V, Tempest and Twelfth Night
- Shelly: Frankenstein ๐งญ
- Smith: The Wealth of Nations
- Sophocles: Antigone ๐งญ
- Tacitus: Annals ๐ซ
- Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War ๐ซ
- Toqueville: Democracy in America ๐๐ซ
- Vergil: The Aeneid
- Weber: The Profession and Vocation of Politics ๐
- Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women ๐
- Woolf: Mrs Dalloway ๐งญ
By the nature of following the traditional "Western Canon" works, the list is biased towards white, male writers. I will do two things to alleviate this bias: 1) Seek out classic works outside the canon to expand the list, 2) Read adaptions, re-interpretations or translations made by women and non-white writers.
There are some obvious Classics that are missing from this list, and I will be adding these as I decide which works to read. As I read around each of the books I'll be posting on my Goodreads profile.
Other Reading Lists
I am in the process of putting together a reading list for photography. If you have thoughts on any of these lists then please do drop me a line!