Western Civ - 10 Most Influential Books

to keep it short: Catholicism is not at the foundation of 99 percent of Western civilization. If you said Plato and Aristotle, then you would be right on the money.

Hence, they are the starting place:

1. Plato, Republic

2. Aristotle, Metaphysics (Aquinas is heavily dependent on Aristotle)

3. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

4. Aristotle, Politics

5. "Homer," Iliad (literature)

6. Newton, Principia (physics)

7. Locke, Second Treatise (source of American gov't)

8. Darwin, Origin of Species (biology)

9. Smith, Wealth of Nations (economics)

10. Marx, Communist Manifesto (communism)

the parenthetical notes are obvious but simply to clarify the spheres involved.

jjjjjjjjjjj wrote:

to keep it short: Catholicism is not at the foundation of 99 percent of Western civilization. If you said Plato and Aristotle, then you would be right on the money.

Hence, they are the starting place:

1. Plato, Republic

2. Aristotle, Metaphysics (Aquinas is heavily dependent on Aristotle)

3. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

4. Aristotle, Politics

5. "Homer," Iliad (literature)

6. Newton, Principia (physics)

7. Locke, Second Treatise (source of American gov't)

8. Darwin, Origin of Species (biology)

9. Smith, Wealth of Nations (economics)

10. Marx, Communist Manifesto (communism)

the parenthetical notes are obvious but simply to clarify the spheres involved.

Any list without Shakespeare is a complete failure. The modern conception of human nature/personality/individuality literally comes straight from him--Hamlet is the first fully human being in the modern sense of the term. Smith, Darwin, and Newton are all too technical, and you're going to get Darwin much better in a modern biology classroom with the benefit of genetics. Great book, don't get me wrong, but if you're only reading 10, you can do better; it's great because it's great writing and historically important, while Dostoyevsky is just purely great. The Bible is more foundational than the Greeks, just look at the rest of the books you listed. Newton wants to know the mind of God, and Locke derives the entire second treatise from the Christian creation myth. And there's no need to read that much Aristotle. He certainly makes it onto any list of the top 10, but to say that he deserves three spots? There are at least two other thinkers out there with equally good cases to what Aristotle can make.

1. the Bible

2. Plato's Republic

3. Aristotle, Politics

4. Homer's Iliad

5. Machiavelli's The Prince

6. Hamlet

7. Crime and Punishment

8. Marx, Communist Manifesto

9. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

10. Locke, Second Treatise

Just bumpin an old thread.

Nothing to add, just add my votes for Smith's Wealth of Nations and the Bible.