My essays are listed by approximate publication date or author’s general period of activity

• The New Testament (c. 1st – 3rd centuries AD)
  • Thoughts on the “Newness” of the New Testament
  • Where Did The New Testament Come From?
  • Notes on the Twelve Apostles of Jesus
  • The Story of the King James Bible
  • Political Theology in the Bible: An Exegesis
• Gospel of Matthew
  • Matthew Chapter 5-7: The Sermon on the Mount
  • Comparing the Death of Jesus in the Four Gospels
• Gospel of Mark
  • Comparing the Death of Jesus in the Four Gospels
• Gospel of Luke
  • Comparing the Death of Jesus in the Four Gospels
  • Notes on Luke-Acts
• Gospel of John
  • Comparing the Death of Jesus in the Four Gospels
  • On the Logos in the Gospel of John
• Acts of the Apostles
  • Notes on Luke-Acts
• Epistle to the Romans
  • The Law in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
• 1st Epistle to the Corinthians
  • Discord in the Early Church: Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians
• 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians
  • Discord in the Early Church: Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians
• Epistle to the Galatians
  • Rejection of Mosaic Law in Galatians
• Epistle to the Ephesians
  • Notes on Paul’s Letter to Ephesus
• Epistle to the Philippians
  • Notes on Paul’s Letter to Philippi
• Epistle to the Colossians
  • Notes on Paul’s Letter to Collossae
• 1st Epistle to the Thessolonians
  • Notes on Paul’s Two Letters to Thessolonica
• 2nd Epistle to the Thessolonians
  • Notes on Paul’s Two Letters to Thessolonica
• 1st Epistle to Timothy
  • On the Corpus Pastorale
• 2nd Epistle Timothy
  • On the Corpus Pastorale
• Epistle to Titus
  • On the Corpus Pastorale
• Epistle to Philemon
  • A Brief Note on Philemon
• Epistle to the Hebrews
  • “Jesus As Superior To Moses” – Thoughts on Hebrews
• Epistle of James
  • Thoughts on the Epistle of James
• 1st Epistle of Peter
  • Peter’s Message in His First Epistle
• 2nd Epistle of Peter
  • The Question of Scriptural Authority in Peter’s Second Epistle
• 1st Epistle of John
  • Eyewitness Testimony in the Johannine Epistles
• 2nd Epistle of John
  • Eyewitness Testimony in the Johannine Epistles
• 3rd Epistle of John
  • Eyewitness Testimony in the Johannine Epistles
• Epistle of Jude
  • Notes on the Unusual Epistle of Jude
• Revelation
  • A Vision of Horror and Apocalypse in John’s Revelation

• Selections from the Apocrypha, Gnostics, and texts from the Nag Hammadi Library
  • The Story of the Nag Hammadi Library
  • The Story of the Dead Sea Scrolls
• The Shepherd of Hermas
  • Thoughts on the Shepherd of Hermas
• The Epistle of Barnabas
  • Notes on the Epistle of Barnabas
• The Gospel of Philip
  • Mary Magdalene in the Gospel of Philip
• The Gospel of Thomas
  • Thoughts on the Gospel of Thomas
• The Apocalypse of Peter
  • Two Texts Called The Apocalypse of Peter
• 1 Clement
  • On Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians
• Didache
  • Thoughts on the Didache

• Clement of Rome (Apostolic Father, c. 1st century AD)
  • On Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians

• Ignatius of Antioch (Apostolic Father, c. 2nd century AD)
  • On Ignatius’s Seven Epistles

• Polycarp of Smyrna (Apostolic Father, c. AD 69 – 155)
  • On Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians

• Papias of Hierapolis (Apostolic Father, c. AD 60 – 130)
  • Notes on the Fragments of Papias

• Josephus (c. AD 37 – 100)
  • Jesus and John the Baptist Briefly Mentioned in Josephus

• Justin Martyr (c. AD 100 – 165)
  • An Attempted Union of Hellenism and Christianity in Justin Martyr’s First Apology
  • Christianity Contra Judaism in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho

• Clement of Alexandria (Church Father, c. AD 150 – 215)
  • Clement’s Attack on Hellenism

• Irenaeus of Lyon (Church Father, c. AD 130 – 202)
  • Irenaeus’s Attack on Heresy

• Tertullian (Church Father, c. AD 155 – 220)
  • Who Is Tertullian?

• Origen of Alexandria (Church Father, c. AD 184 – 253)
  • On Origen’s First Principles

• Athanasius of Alexandria (Church Father, c. AD 296/298 – 373)
  • On Athanasius’s “On The Incarnation of the Word”
  • Thoughts on Asceticism in Athanasius’s Life of Antony

• Eusebius (Church Father, c. AD 260/265 – 339/340)
  • On Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History and the Origins of the Gospels

• Enneads by Plotinus (c. AD 3rd century)

• St. Ambrose (Church Doctor, c. AD 340 – 397)
  • Brief Notes on the Life of Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan

• Saint Augustine (Church Doctor, AD 354 – 430)
  • Who is Saint Augustine of Hippo?
  • Confessions
    • Wrestling with Divine Epistemology in Saint Augustine’s Confessions, Book I
    • Reflections on St. Augustine’s Moment of Conversion
    • Saint Augustine on Time
  • City of God
    • History, Providence, and Progress in Saint Augustine’s City of God
  • On the Free Choice of the Will
    • Considering Theodicy in St. Augustine “On the Free Choice of the Will”

• St. Jerome (Church Doctor, c. AD 342/347 – 420)
  • The Story of Jerome’s Vulgate

• The Nicene Creed (AD 325 – 381)
  • On The Nicene Creed

• Porphyry (c. 234 – 305 AD)

• Selections from Ordo urbium nobilium by Ausonius (c. AD 310 – 395)

• St. Patrick’s Confessio (c. 5th century)
  • Thoughts on St. Patrick’s “Confessio”

• Proclus (c. 5th century AD)

• Iamblichus (c. 245 – 325 AD)

• The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius (c. AD 523)

• The Code of Justinian (c. AD 534)

• The Hymn by Bede (7th century)

• Beowulf (c. 700–1000)

• The Qu’ran (c. 610 – 632)

• The Thousand and One Nights (c. 9th century)

• The Rubaiyat (c. 10th century)

• Avicenna (c. 980 – 1037)

• Proslogion by Saint Anselm (c. 1077–1078)

• Peter Abelard (1079-1142)

• Tale of Genji (c. 11th century)

• The Incoherence of the Philosophers (c. 11th century)

• Averroes (c. 1126 – 1198)

• The Guide for the Perplexed by Maimonides (c. 1190)

• Niebelungenlied (c. 1200)

• The Kaddish (c. 900- 13th century)

• Chrétien de Troyes (c. 12th century)

• Magna Carta
  • King John and Magna Carta (1199-1216)

• St. Bonaventure (1221-1274)

• Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
  • The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso)
  • La Vita Nuova

• The Golden Legend (c. 13th century)

• The Poetic Edda (c. 13th century)

• The Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas (c. 13th century)

• Le Roman de la Rosa (c. 13th century)

• Duns Scotus (c. 1265/66 – 1308)

• Decameron by Giovanni Bocaccio (1313-1375)

• Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s-1400)
  • Who Is Geoffrey Chaucer?
  • On “Chaucer’s Dialectic: How the Establishment Theology is Subjected to Scrutiny in Five Canterbury Tales” by Barbara Tovey
• The Canterbury Tales
  • Chaucer’s Silence: On the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
  • “Make Of Two Sorrows One Perfect Joy” A Reading of The Knight’s Tale
  • The Idea of Requital in The Miller’s Tale
  • A Defense of Justice in The Reeve’s Tale
  • Notes on the Unfinished Cook’s Tale
  • A Story of “Joy after Woe” in The Man of Law’s Tale
  • The Wife of Bath’s Tale: Autobiography and Arthurian Parody
  • Intentionality in The Friar’s Tale
  • Aristotelian Mimesis: The Conflict Between the Friar and the Summoner
  • The Scholar’s Desire for Power: A Reading of The Clerk’s Tale
  • A Qualified Defense of Marriage in The Merchant’s Tale
  • On The (Interrupted) Squire’s Tale
  • Pity and Promises in the Franklin’s Tale
  • History Contra Poetics in The Physician’s Tale
  • Disingenuous Authorial Intent in The Pardoner’s Tale
  • The Principle of Exchange in The Shipman’s Tale
  • A Hollow Story of Martyrdom In The Prioress’s Tale
  • On Chaucerian Irony in the Tale of Sir Thopas
  • Deprivation and Excess in The Tale of Sir Thopas and The Tale of Melibee
  • Seventeen Tragic Biographies in The Monk’s Tale
  • “The latter ende of joye is wo” On The Dangerous Significance of Poetry in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale
  • Authorship in the Second Nun’s Tale
  • Trickery and Alchemy in the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale
  • On The Wisdom of Silence in The Manciple’s Tale
  • An Appeal to Common Wisdom in the Final Tale: The Parson’s Tale

• Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich (c. 14th – 15th centuries)

• The Pearl Poet (14th century)

• William Langland (1332-1386)

• John Gower (1330-1408)

• St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 14th century)

• Christine de Pizan (1364-1430)

• Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory (c. 15th century)

• The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis (1418–1427)

• The Trial of Joan of Arc (c. 1431)

• Amadis de Gaula, by García Montalvo (1450-1505)

• In Praise of Folly by Erasmus (1466-1536)

• Leonardo de Vinci’s Notebooks (1442-1519)

• Journal of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

• Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533)

• A Short Account of the Destruction of Indies by Bartolome de las Casas (1484-1566)

• Sir Thomas More (1478-1535)
  • History of King Richard III
  • Utopia
  • A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation

• Machiavelli (1469-1527)
  • The Prince
  • The Discourses on Livy
  • Florentine Histories

• On The Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres by Copernicus (1473-1543)

• The 95 Theses by Martin Luther (1483-1546)

• Gargantua & Pantagruel Pentology by Francois Rabelais (1483/1494-1553)
  • The Absurd World of Pantagruel

• The Nuremberg Chronicle (c. 15th century)

• The Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574)

• The Book of Martyrs by John Foxe (1516/1517–1587)

• The Lusiads (1524/1525 – 1580)

• Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Palestrina (1525–1594)

• Essays by Montaigne (1533-1592)

• Poems by Anne Locke (1533–1590)

• Introduction to the Analytical Art by Francois Viete (1540–1603)

• Poems of St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)

• De Magnete by William Gilbert (c. 1544–1603)

• Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)

• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
  • Who Is Miguel de Cervantes?
  • When Poetry Conquers Philosophy: Reflections on Don Quixote
  • On Authorship in Don Quixote

• The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

• Lope de Vega (1562–1635)

• William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
  • Who Is William Shakespeare?
  • On Stephen Greenblatt’s “Will in the World”
  • On “The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606” by James Shapiro
• Shakespeare’s Comedies
  • All’s Well That Ends Well
  • As You Like It
    • As You Like It, Act I
    • As You Like It, Act II
    • “All The World’s A Stage” Considered
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • Measure for Measure
  • The Merchant of Venice
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • The Taming of the Shrew
  • The Tempest
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • The Winter’s Tale
  • Twelfth Night
• Shakespeare’s Tragedies
  • Antony and Cleopatra
    • Love is the Chiefest Virtue: A Reading of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra
    • On Allan Bloom’s Essay on Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra”
    • On “Shakespeare’s Rome: Republic and Empire” by Paul Cantor
    • On “Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy: The Twilight of the Ancient World” by Paul Cantor
  • Coriolanus
    • “Valour is the Chiefest Virtue:” A Reading of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus
    • On John Alvis’s “Coriolanus and Aristotle’s Magnanimous Man Reconsidered”
    • On “Shakespeare’s Rome: Republic and Empire” by Paul Cantor
    • On “Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy: The Twilight of the Ancient World” by Paul Cantor
  • Cymbeline
  • Hamlet
    • Introduction to Hamlet
    • “Crawling Between Earth and Heaven:” A Reading of Hamlet
    • Reflections on Norway, Denmark, and Hamlet’s Ghost
    • A Note on Shakespeare’s “Bad Quarto” of Hamlet
    • On “Hamlet: The Cosmopolitan Prince” by Paul Cantor
  • Julius Caesar
    • “The Fault is Not in Our Stars:” A Reading of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
    • A Few Notes on “Julius Caesar: The Problem of Classical Republicanism” by Timothy W. Burns
    • Notes on “The Morality of the Pagan Hero” by Allan Bloom
    • On David Lowenthal’s Essay on Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”
    • On “Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy: The Twilight of the Ancient World” by Paul Cantor
  • King Lear
    • “Then Shall the Realm of Albion Come to Great Confusion” A Reading of King Lear
    • On “King Lear: The Question of Divine Justice” by Timothy Burns
    • On “The Limits of Politics: King Lear, Act I, Scene I” by Harry Jaffa
  • Macbeth
    • Introduction to Macbeth
    • A Classical Hero in the Modern World: A Reading of Macbeth
    • “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” Considered
    • Examining the Thanes in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
    • Comparing Clytemnestra and Lady Macbeth
    • On Children and Natural Limits in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
    • On “Macbeth: Driven into Darkness” by Timothy Burns
    • On “A Soldier and Afeard: Macbeth and the Gospelling of Scotland” by Paul A. Cantor
    • On David Lowenthal’s Essay on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”
  • Othello
    • Ancient Valor and Modern Humility: A Reading of Othello
    • Thoughts on the Clown in Shakespeare’s Othello
    • On Allan Bloom’s “Cosmopolitan Man and the Political Community”
  • Romeo and Juliet
    • “Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.” A Reading of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
    • On Allan Bloom’s Essay on “Romeo and Juliet”
  • Timon of Athens
  • Titus Andronicus
  • Troilus and Cressida
• Shakespeare’s Histories
  • Henry IV Part I
  • Henry IV Part II
  • Henry V
  • Henry VI Part I
  • Henry VI Part II
  • Henry VI Part III
  • Henry VIII
  • King John
  • Richard II
  • Richard III
• Other Shakespeare (Not Included in the First Folio)
  • Pericles
  • The Two Noble Kinsmen

• The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (1552/1553–1599)

• Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
  • Tamburlaine

• Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
  • Philip Sidney

• Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)
  • Starry Messenger
  • Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

• L’Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)

• Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
  • New Astronomy
  • Harmony of the Worlds

• De Motu Cordis by William Harvey (1578–1657)

• Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

• Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
  • Musicae Compendium
  • Le Monde
  • Geometry
  • Discourse on the Method
  • Meditations on First Philosophy
  • Principles of Philosophy

• “A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love” by Lady Mary Wroth (1587 – 1651/1653)

• The Book of Common Prayer (c. 16th century)

• Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton (1608–1674)

• Poems by Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672)

• Maxims by Francois de la Rochefocauld (1613–1680)

• Essays by Edme Marriott (1620–1684)

• Fables by Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695)

• Poems by Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)

• Moliere (1623-1677)
  • Tartuffe
  • Misanthrope

• Pensees by Pascal (1623–1662)

• Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (1628–1688)
  • Thoughts on Pilgrim’s Progress

• Treatise on Light by Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695)

• John Dryden (1631-1700)

• John Locke (1632–1704)
  • A Letter Concerning Toleration
  • Two Treatises of Government
  • An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

• Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715)

• Andromache by Racine (1639-1699)

• Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
  • Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica

• The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694)

• Daniel Defoe (1660–1731)
  • Robinson Crusoe
    • Robinson Crusoe’s Diary of Survivalism
  • Moll Flanders

• Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
  • Who Is Jonathan Swift?
  • “A Tale Of A Tub” and “The Battle of the Books” (1704)
    • Thoughts on “A Tale Of A Tub” and the “Battle of the Books”
  • An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1708)
  • Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
    • Jonathan Swift and the Idea of Satire
    • Whither Gulliver? Reflections on Gulliver’s Travels
    • On Allan Bloom’s “Giants and Dwarfs: An Outline of Gulliver’s Travels”
  • A Modest Proposal (1729)
    • Disentangling Irony in Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”

• The Motion of the Stretched String by Brook Taylor (1685-1731)

• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
  • St. Matthew Passion
  • Inventions

• Principles of Human Knowledge by Berkeley (1685–1753)

• “The Fahrenheit Scale” by Daniel Fahrenheit (1686-1736)

• Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
  • Rape of the Lock
  • Essay on Man

• Lord Chesterfield’s Letters (1694-1773)

• Voltaire (1694 – 30 May 1778)
  • Who Is Voltaire?
  • Candide
    • On Suffering in Voltaire’s Candide
  • Treatise on Tolerance

• “On the Vibrating String” By Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782)

• Observations on Electrical Phenomena Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700-1770)

• Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)

• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

• Euler’s writings on Mr. Bernoulli (1707-1783)

• Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

• David Hume (1711-1776)
  • A Treatise of Human Nature
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
  • Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

• Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
  • Heloise
  • The Social Contract
  • Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
  • Discourse on Inequality
  • Emile, or On Education
  • Reveries of a Solitary Walker
  • Confessions

• Rameau’s Nephew by Denis Diderot (1713–1784)

• Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
  • Observations on the Feelings of the Beautiful and the Sublime
  • On The Different Races of Man
  • Critique of Pure Reason
  • Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
  • An Answer to the Question “What Is Enlightenment?”
  • Idea For A Universal History With A Cosmopolitan Purpose
  • Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

• The Memoirs of Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798)

• The New Science by Vico (c. 1725)

• Extracts from the Lectures on Chemical Elements by Joseph Black (1728–1799)

• Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
  • A Vindication of Natural Society
  • Reflections on the Revolution in France

• Quartets by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

• Common Sense and The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

• Elements of Chemistry by Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794)

• “Zoological Philosophy” by Jean-Baptiste Lamarcke (1744-1829)

• Essay on Electricity by Alessandra Volta (1745–1827)

• Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797)

• Excerpt from the Essay on Static Chemicals by Claude Berthollet (1748–1822)

• Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

• Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (c. 1749)
  • A Note on Fortune and Fate in Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book I
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book II
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book III
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book IV
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book V
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book VI
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book VII
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones Book VIII
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones Book IX
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones Book X
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book XI
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book XII
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book XIII
  • Refections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book XIV
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book XV
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book XVI
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book XVII
  • Reflections on Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Book XVIII

• Faust by Goethe (1749-1832)

• Poems by Phyllis Wheatley (1753-1784)

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
  • Symphonies
  • Operas
  • Don Giovanni

• William Blake (1757-1827)

• Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

• Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805)

• Robert Burns (1759-1796)
  • The Story Behind “Auld Lang Syne”

• Extracts From a New System Chemical Philosophy by John Dalton (1766–1844)

• Symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)

• William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

• “On the Nature of Light and Electricity” by Thomas Young (1773-1829)

• Essays by Andre-Marie Ampere (1775-1836)

• Letters From A Pennsylvania Farmer by John Dickinson (1767-1768)

• Life of Black Hawk, or Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak (1767-1838)

• Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (c. 1776)

• The United States Declaration of Independence (1776)

• The Articles of Confederation (c. 1777)

• Constitution of the United States of America (1788)

• Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen (The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen) (1789)

• “Essay on a Manner Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies” by Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856)

• “On the Expansion of Gases by Heat” & “Memoir on the Combination of Gaseous Substances with Each Other” by Joseph-Louis Gay Lussac (1778–1850)

• The World As Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

• “Experimental Researches in Electricity” by Michael Faraday (1791–1867)

• Life of Samuel Johnson by Boswell (c. 1791)

• Theory of Parallels by Nikolai Lobachevsky (1792-1856)

• Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

• Thomas Carlyle on the French Revolution (1795-1881)

• Songs by Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

• Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
  • The Fall of the House of Usher
  • The Murders in the Rue Morgue
  • The Pit and the Pendulum
  • The Tell-Tale Heart
  • The Bells
  • The Raven

• The Book of Mormon (c. 19th century)

• George Bancroft’s History of the United States (1800-1891)

• The Journals of Lewis and Clark (1803-1806)

• Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

• John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

• Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)

• Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

• Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
  • The Voyage of the Beagle
  • On The Origin of Species
  • The Descent of Man

• Writings of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

• Grimm’s Fairy Tales (c. 1812)

• Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

• Karl Marx (1813-1883)
  • On The Jewish Question
  • Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
  • The German Ideology
  • The Communist Manifesto
  • Capital

• Journals and Letters of David Livingstone (1813-1873)

• Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
  • On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates
  • Either/Or
  • Fear and Trembling
  • Philosophical Fragments
  • The Concept of Anxiety
  • The Sickness Unto Death

• Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

• The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897)

• Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

• First Principles of a New System of Philosophy by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

• Cellular Pathology Lectures by Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902)

• Les Fleurs de Mal by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

• “Experiments with Plant Hybridization” by Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)

• The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)

• Mary Chestnuts Diaries of the Civil War (1823-1886)

• “Letter to Professor S. de Luca” by Stanislau Canizzaro (1826–1910)

• Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

• James Clerk Maxwell on Farady (1831-1879)

• Essay on the Theory of Numbers by Richard Dedekind (1831-1916)

• “Art” by Eduoard Manet (1832-1883)

• “The Periodic Law of Chemical Elements” by Dmitri Mendeleev (1834–1907)

• Autobiography of Mark Twain Volumes I-II (1835-1910)

• The Gospel of Wealth (Essay) by Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)

• Henry Adams (1838-1918)
  • History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson
  • The Education of Henry Adams

• Writings of John Muir (1838-1914)

• The Varieties of Religious Experience, Pragmatism by William James (1842-1910)

• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
  • The Birth of Tragedy
  • On Truth and Lies In A Nonmoral Sense
  • Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
  • Untimely Meditations
  • Human, All Too Human
  • The Dawn
  • The Gay Science
  • Thus Spake Zarathustra
  • Beyond Good and Evil
  • On The Genealogy of Morals
  • Twilight of the Idols
  • The Antichrist
  • Ecce Homo

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (c. 1845)

• Scientific Autobiography by Max Planck (1848-1947)

• The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

• Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)

• Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

• “Cathode Rays” by J.J. Thompson (1856-1940)

• Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

• Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929)

• Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
  • Suicide
  • The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

• An Introduction to Metaphysics by Henri Bergson (1859-1941)

• “The Crisis of the European Sciences” by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)

• Experience and Education by John Dewey (1859-1952)

• Science and the Modern World, Introduction to Mathematics by Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)

• Essays by Theodor Boveri (1862-1915)

• George Santayana (1863-1952)

• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber (1864-1920)

• “Space and Time by Hermann Minkowski (1864-1909)

• “Evolution and Genetics” by Thomas Morgan (1866-1945)

• “The Science and Philosophy of the Organism” by Hans Driesch (1867–1941)

• The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963)

• “The Electron” by Robert Andrews Millikan (1868-1953)

• Mohandes Gandhi (1869-1948)

• Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)

• “The Structure of the Atom” by Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)

• Poems by Paul Valery (1871-1945)

• Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
  • An Introduction Mathematical Philosophy
  • The Problems of Philosophy

• Amy Lowell Poetry (1874-1925)

• G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
  • The Man Who Was Thursday
  • Orthodoxy
  • The Everlasting Man

• Robert Frost (1874-1963)

• Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
  • The World Crisis
  • The Second World War
  • The History of English Speaking Peoples

• Carl Jung (1875-1961)

• Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

• Essays by Walter Sutton (1877-1916)

• G.H. Hardy on Gregor Mendel (1877–1947)

• Abraham Lincoln The War Years by Carl Sandburg (1878-1969)

• Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

• Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
  • The General Theory of Relativity
  • The Special Theory of Relativity
  • The World as I See It
  • Ideas and Opinions
  • The Evolution of Physics
  • Why Socialism?
  • Essays in Humanism

• The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (1880-1968)

• The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler (1880-1936)

• Symphonies of Psalms by Igor Stravisnky (1882–1971)

• William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

• The Revolt of the Masses by Jose Ortega y Gassett (1883-1955)

• The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)

• Ezra Pound’s Cantos (1885-1972)

• Atomic Theory by Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

• The Word of God and the Word of Man by Karl Barth (1886-1968)

• What Is Life? & “Four Lectures of Wave Mechanics” by Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961)

• Essays by Marcel Duchamps (1887-1968)

• Marianne Moore (1887-1972)

• Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953)

• T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

• Carl Schmitt (1888-1985)

• Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
  • Being and Time
  • Introduction to Metaphysics
  • The Question Concerning Technology

• The Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)

• The Idea of History by R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943)

• The Crusade in Europe by Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969)

• Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)

• Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

• Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

• “Matter Waves” by Louisde Broglie (1892-1987)

• The Little Red Book by Mao Zedong (1893-1976)

• Native American Chants and Songs (compiled by the Norton Anthology)

• The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life by Francis Parkman, Jr. (1849)

• Life Among the Piutes by Sarah Winnemucca (1883)

• e. e. cummings (1894-1962)

• Cybernetics by Norbert Wiener (1894-1964)

• Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993)

• The Greek Myths by Robert Graves (1895-1985)

• Max Horkheimer (1895-1973)

• C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)
  • The Screwtape Letters
  • The Problem of Pain
  • Mere Christianity
  • The Case for Christianity
  • The Abolition of Man
  • The Space Trilogy
  • The Great Divorce

• Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)

• The Road To Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992)

• Essays by Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod (c. 20th century)

• Essays by George Beadle and Edward Tatum (c. 20th century)

• Essays by James Watson and Francis Crick (c. 20th century)

• Leo Strauss (1899-1973)
  • The Teaching of Aristotle’s Politics

• Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002)

• Physics and Philosophy by Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)

• Langston Hughes (1901-1967)

• Alexandre Kojève (1902-1968)

• Karl Popper (1902-1994)
  • The Poverty of Historicism
  • The Open Society and Its Enemies

• Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969)

• American Diplomacy by George F. Kennan (1904-2005)

• Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)

• The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (1904-1987)

• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
  • Nausea
  • No Exit
  • Being and Nothingness

• Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
  • The Fountainhead
  • Atlas Shrugged
  • Anthem
  • The Virtue of Selfishness

• Lionel Trilling (1905-1975)

• The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

• Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)
  • The Origins of Totalitarianism
  • The Human Condition
  • Eichmann in Jerusalem
  • On Revolution

• W.H. Auden (1907-1973)

• Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)

• The Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961)

• Tristes Tropiques by Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2008)

• The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)

• The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

• Structural Anthropology by Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009)

• Simone Weil (1909-1943)
  • The Need for Roots
  • The Notebooks of Simone Weil

• Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997)
  • Against The Current: Essays in the History of Ideas

• Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver (1910-1963)

• Boy Scouts of America Handbook (1910)

• Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

• Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman (1912-2006)

• Aimé Césaire (1913-2008)

• Albert Camus (1913-1960)
  • The Stranger
  • The Plague

• Roland Barthes (1915-1980)

• Shelby Foote’s Narrative of the Civil War (1916-2005)

• Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

• Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)

• Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012)

• Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
  • Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher

• Doris Lessing (1919-2013)

• Russel Kirk (1918-1994)
  • The Conservative Mind
  • The Roots of American Order

• Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin (1920-1980)

• A Theory of Justice by John Rawls (1921-2002)

• Thomas Kuhn (1922-1992)

• Erving Goffman (1922-1982)

• René Girard (1923-2015)

• The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell (1924-2012)

• Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995)
  • Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus

• William F. Buckley (1925-2008)
  • God and Man at Yale
  • Up From Liberalism

• Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)

• Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)

• Ways of Seeing by John Berger (1926-2017)

• Michel Foucault (1926-1984)
  • The Archaeology of Knowledge
  • Madness and Civilization
  • Discipline and Punish
  • The History of Sexuality

• “The Clash of Civilizations” by Samuel P. Huntington (1927-2008)

• Noam Chomsky (1928-Present)

• Letter From Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King jr. (1929-1968)

• Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1929-1929)

• Jürgen Habermas (1929-Present)

• Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007)

• Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-Present)

• E. O. Wilson (1929-Present)

• The Anxiety of Influence by Harold Bloom (1930-2019)

• Allan Bloom (1930-1992)

• Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)
  • Speech and Phenomena
  • Of Grammatology
  • Writing and Difference

• Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)

• Charles Taylor (1931-Present)

• Richard Rorty (1931-2007)

• Alvin Plantinga (1932-Present)

• Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
  • On Photography
  • Against Interpretation
  • Illness As Metaphor
  • Regarding the Pain of Others
  • Styles of Radical Will
  • In America

• Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

• Imagining Numbers by Barry Mazur (1937-Present)

• Alain Badiou (1937-Present)

• Thomas Nagel (1937-Present)

• Robert Nozick (1938-2002)

• Richard Dawkins (1941-Present)

• A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)

• Daniel Dennett (1942-Present)

• John McDowell (1942-Present)

• Essays by Joel Sussman (1943-Present)

• Louise Glück’s A Village Life (1943-Present)

• Stephen Greenblatt (1943-Present)
  • Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (2004)
    • On Stephen Greenblatt’s “Will in the World”
  • The Swerve: How The World Became Modern (2011)

• Roger Scruton (1944-2020)

• The United Nations Charter (c. 1945)

• Peter Singer (1946-Present)

• Martha Nussbaum (1947-Present)

• Pierre Manent (1949-Present)
  • Metamorphoses of the City
  • An Intellectual History of Liberalism

• Slavoj Zizek (1949-Present)
  • The Sublime Object of Ideology