As an old cavalryman the primary rule for action was to ride to the sound of the guns. In an earlier post our esteemed troll suggested we should be reading somebody who write a blog--
And this, of course suggested an even more fun activity: what books should we be reading? Yeah yeah--this is the old great books dodge; but it is fun. Forthwith my ideas about essential literature (religious tracts not included):
1 Thucydides. The Peloponnesian Wars
2.Tacitus. The Annals
3. Marsilio of Padua: Defensor Pacis
4. Hobbes: Leviathan and A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England
5. Harrington: Oceana
6. Locke: The Second Treatise
7. Jefferson: The Declaration of Independence
8. Assorted Authors: The Federalist Papers (particularly Federalist 10 and 51)
9. Assorted Authors: The Constitution of the United States of America
10. JJ Rousseau: The Social Contract
11. Adam Smith: On the Wealth of Nations
12. John C Calhoun: A Disquisition on Government
13. John Stuart Mill: On Liberty
12. Karl Marx: The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napolean
And there you have it! Your thoughts?
WILD TIMES AT THE OLD BLAIR HOUSE
2 hours ago
10 comments:
Boy do I have a lot of reading I need to get caught up on!
No Montesquieu, Burke or Oakeshott? Half the foundation is missing.
Oh well, I'll take counsel of Marcus Aurelius and watch quietly.
Epictetus, Enchiridion, and of course The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
Gödel's Proof, Nadel and Newman.
Plato.
Add to that:
Confucius, The Analects. Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Machiavelli, The Prince, The Art of War.
U.S. Grant, Memoirs
Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies
Steven Levitt, Freakonomics
Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, Politics and the English Language
I didn't know anyone but me read Machiavelli's Art of War.
Okay, I'll see you Sunzi and raise you Laozi, the Tao te ching.
The Vajracchedika Prajna paramita Sutra ... maybe. I'm undecided.
Irving Kristol - Two Cheers For Capitalism
James Fitzjames Stephen - Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
Russell Kirk - Prospects for Conservatives
Robert Nisbet - The Quest For Community
Some of these may be out of print. Liberty Fund might have some of them.
Jeez--what a list. Churchill's six-volume "The Second World War" is a favorite, especially since he led into the writing by answering a question about how he saw history as treating him, with "History shall indeed be kind to me, for I intend to write it."
Words to be believed!
Well Seneca, I was going to throw in Frederick the Great's Regulations for the Prussian Infantry, and De Saxe's Reveries, and even Vegetius, but I thought that would probably confuse people.
Oh yes. I'll see your Tao Te Ching and raise you Mencius and Ibn Khaldun's THe Muqaddimah.
"Hamlet" in Spanish:
"para ser, o no ser, que es la pregunta!"
Post a Comment