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Comment by mdiep | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to see a full list of all the books you read and the order in which you read them. I recently started reading The Story of Civilization and augmenting it with other works seems like a wonderful idea.

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I've meant to compile this list, so you just inspired me. I wish the Durants had had the stamina for one more volume. I don't know much about the European revolutions of 1848 and would have like to read about that time from them. I already had read a lot of ancient Greek literature in translation as well as The Pentateuch, all the historical books of the Old Testament and the Gospels. Western Civilization springs from intellectual roots in Athens and Jerusalem, so any survey has to include that heritage. My degree is in Comparative Literature, so I put a lot of stock in origninal source material. The only languages I read are English and German, so everything is in English or translation except Faust, which IMO would be a waste in translation. The books I read for my survey (this was my survey to fill in my personal Bildungslöcke) are not all classics, and not even all to be recommended. It may appear surprisingly heavy on 20th century, but a lot of intellectual threads I thought I should understand better got kicked off in that century. In more or less chronological order by authorship or content (and I've probably forgotten a few):

Euclid The Elements

Arrian The Campaigns of Alexander

Garmonsway (trans.) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Komroff (ed.) The Travels of Marco Polo

Haydn The Counter-Renaissance

Braudel The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II, Vol I&II

Pascal The Thoughts

Spinoza The Ethics

Christianson In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton & his Times

Newton Opticks

Newton Principia (get the modern English translation by U.C. Press)

Hampson The Enlightenment

Voltaire Candide

Rousseau The Social Contract

Boswell Life of Johnson

Goethe Faust

Phillips The Cousins' Wars

Schom Napoleon Bonaparte

Heidler & Heidler Old Hickory's War

Babbage On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures

de Toqueville Democracy in America

Darwin On the Origen of Species

Foote The Civil War: A Narrative

Maurois Disraeli

Twain Life on the Mississippi

Spector Admiral of the New Empire, The Life and Career of George Dewey

Cardwell The Norton History of Technology

Abbott Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions

Meyer & Brysac Tournament of Shaddows, The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia

Doughty Travels in Arabia Deserta

Lefevre The Golden Flood

Massie Dreadnought, Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War

Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Durant The Story of Philosophy

Cardozo The Nature of the Judicial Process

Schapiro The Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery

Kershaw Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris

Blemenson (ed.) The Patton Papers (1940-1945)

Hayek The Road to Serfdom

von Mises Human Action

Skinner Walden Two

Chambers Witness

Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Guevara Guerrilla Warfare

Cleaver Soul on Ice

Lacey The Kingdom, Arabia & the House of Saud

Durant The Lessons of History

Hackworth Lessons Learned, Vietnam Primer

Quigley Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time

EDIT: Just remembered two more

Hobbes Leviathan

Locke Two Treatises of Government

If you don't mind reading German then you might be interested in the the four volume series "Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte" by Hans-Ulrich Wehler. Friends from Germany keep telling me that this is the reference about Germany's society. Parts II and III should cover 1848 and I figure there are similar texts for other European countries.

(Since you've read Faust and the intial post mentions Gibbon's Rise and Fall, you might be interested in Theodor Mommsen's "History of Rome" as well.)

You may have seen Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention by Watson. Could be a good umbrella book to tie it all together.

Quick question: Is Origen really the name of Darwin's book, or is it just misspelled? You (mis?)spelled "Origin" the same way everywhere, which makes me wonder...

P.S. I'm heartened to see Mises and Hayek on your list. I recommend adding Burke and (especially) Carlyle. If you can fully digest Carlyle, your fear for democracy and republican government will turn to panic, and your journey to the Dark Side will be complete.

According to google image search, it's Origin: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=On+the+Origin+of+Sp...

Misspelled. Caught me.

Did you enjoy Spinoza's Ethics?

At the time I found it somewhat interesting, but it's one of the books that really didn't stick with me. as I progressed reading through the centuries it was more interesting within the developments of its time and immediately succeeding era. Reading the philosophers I have read, it always struck me they encapsulated a certain essence of the era that followed their time. Probably post hoc selection has a lot to do with why they are still remembered. I think PG is right about most philosophy. I haven't read any at all in over a decade.

I remembered another book from my survey of western civ:

Tuchman A Distant Mirror

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