First Year Reading List

1. Plato: Apology, Crito
2. Aristophanes: Clouds, Lysistrata
3. Plato: Republic (Books I – II)
4. Aristotle: Ethics (Book I)
5. Aristotle: Politics (Book I)
6. Plutarch: The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans [Lycurgus, ,Numa Pompilius, Lycurgus and Numa Compared, Alexander, Caesar]
7. New Testament: The Gospel According to St. Mathew, The Acts of the Apostles
8. St. Augustine: Confessions (Book I-VIII)
9. Machiavelli: The Prince
10. Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (Book I – II)
11. Montaigne: Essays [Of Custom, and That We Should Not Easily Change a Law Received; of Pedantry; Of the Education of Children; That It Is  Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity; Of Cannibals; That the Relish of Good and Evil Depends in Great Measures upon the Opinion We Have of Them; Upon Some Verses of Virgil]
12. Shakespeare: Hamlet
13. Locke: Concerning Civil Government (Second Essay)
14. Rousseau: The Social Contract (Book I – II)
15. Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Chapter 15 – 16)
16. The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, The
    Federalist [Numbers 1-10, 15, 31, 41, 51, 68-71]
17. Smith: The Wealth of Nations (Introduction – Book I, Chapter 9)
18. Marx-Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party