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Ten Books Every Student Should Read in College
HUMAN EVENTS ^ | Week of June 2, 2003 | 28 distinguished scholars and university professors

Posted on 05/30/2003 11:45:30 AM PDT by Remedy

The editors of HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 28 distinguished scholars and university professors to serve as judges in developing a list of Ten Books Every Student Should Read in College.

To derive the list, each scholar first nominated titles. When all the nominations were collected-they amounted to more than 100 titles-HUMAN EVENTS then sent a ballot to the scholars asking each to list his or her Top Ten selections. A book was awarded ten points for receiving a No. 1 rating, 9 points for receiving a No. 2 rating, and so on. The ten books with the highest aggregate ratings made the list. We have also compiled an Honorable Mention list.

Interestingly enough, the No. 1 book our judges decided every college student should read is a volume that has been virtually banned in public schools by the United States Supreme Court.

1. The Bible

Score: 116
Written: c. 1446 B.C. to c. A.D. 95

The Bible, the central work of Western Civilization, defines the relationship between God and man, and forms the foundation of faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yet, today it is virtually banned in America's public primary and secondary schools-meaning many American students may not encounter the most important book of all time in a classroom setting until they reach college.

2. The Federalist Papers

Score: 106
Authors: Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
Written: October 1787 to May 1788

Written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, The Federalist Papers first appeared in several New York state newspapers as a series of 85 essays published under the nom de plume "Publius" from the fall of 1787 to the spring of 1788.

The purpose of The Federalist Papers was to garner support for the newly created Constitution. At the time the states were bound together under the Articles of Confederation, but the weakness of the Articles necessitated the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Once the Constitution was drafted, nine states were required to ratify it, so Hamilton, Jay, and Madison took up the effort to persuade skeptics. Because Hamilton and Madison were both members of the Constitutional Convention, their writings are instructive in divining the original intent of those who drafted the Constitution.

According to the Library of Congress, the first bound edition of The Federalist Papers was published in 1788 with revisions and corrections by Hamilton. A bound edition with revisions and corrections by Madison published in 1818 was the first to identify the authors of each essay.

3. Democracy in America

Score: 80
Author: Alexis de Tocqueville
Written: 1835

A left-leaning Frenchman who visited America in 1831, de Tocqueville produced an incisive portrait of American political and social life in the early 19th Century. He praised the democratic ideals and private virtues of the American people but warned against what he saw as the tyrannical tendency of public opinion. Visiting during the heyday of slavery, de Tocqueville foresaw the troubles racial questions would pose for the country. He also was early in observing that judicial power had a tendency to usurp the political in the United States. He also wrote of the difficulties inherent in the egalitarian sentiment then gaining strength in America. "However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit," he said.

4. The Divine Comedy

Score: 57
Author: Dante Alighieri
Written: A.D. 1306-1321

One of the most frequently cited poems of all time, this epic allegory is an amalgam of Dante's views of science, theology, astronomy, and philosophy. In it Dante recounts his imaginary journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, during which he realizes his hatred for his sin and becomes a changed man by the grace of God.

The work contains three sections-"Inferno," "Purgatorio," and "Paradiso." In "Inferno," Dante journeys through Hell, led by the soul of the Roman poet Virgil. He describes Hell as a funnel-shaped pit divided into nine circles, each one a place for those people guilty of a particular sin, with suffering increasing as he descends to the bottom where Satan himself dwells.

In "Purgatorio," Dante travels with Virgil up the Mount of Purgatory. Ten terraces make up the Mount and the process of purification for its occupants is arduous as they climb from terrace to terrace. When Dante and Virgil pass the final terrace, they glimpse Paradise where Beatrice, Dante's first love, awaits and Virgil is forced to depart.

In "Paradiso," Beatrice guides Dante through the various levels of Paradise. At the highest level, Empyrean, where God, Mary, and many of the angels and saints abide, Dante views the light of God, which leaves him speechless and changed.

5. The Republic

Score: 55
Author: Plato
Written: c. 360 B.C.

The Republic is likely the most important work of the most important and influential philosopher who ever lived. The writings of Plato, a disciple of Socrates in ancient Athens, provide the foundation of abstract thought for all of Western Civilization, and The Republic contains expositions of various theories of justice, the state and society, and the soul. Is justice a matter of being helpful to those who help you and harmful to those who harm you? Or is it simply the "interest of the stronger," defined by those who govern the rest of us, as post-modern leftists would have it? How should society be organized? How is the human soul structured? How may we arrive at truth? The first author in history to deal with such questions in systematic rational argument, Plato contrasts the ideal society with reality in a way later echoed in the City of God (No. 7) by St. Augustine-who explored his own soul in his Confessions (No. 9). Plato describes the first totalitarian utopia as part of his argument, the first of many thinkers to do so. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought."

6. The Politics

Score: 54
Author: Aristotle
Written: Fourth Century, B.C.

Aristotle, the most famous student of Plato, is one of the few men who managed to be highly appreciated both in his own time (he was hired to tutor Alexander the Great) and by posterity. His philosophy continues to form the backbone of Western thought. Much of his writing was lost for centuries, but its recovery helped Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th Century, and later political philosophers, develop the concept of natural law that became central to the Anglo-American understanding of just and limited government. Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson cited Aristotle as an inspiration for the Declaration of Independence.

In the Politics, Aristotle examines the formation and composition of civil society more simply and effectively than perhaps anyone since. Beginning with a complete accounting of the elements in the basic unit of society-the oikos or family home-the philosopher expands outward to discuss the larger unit of human existence, the city-state-or polis-in the same terms.

7. Nicomachaean Ethics

Score: 52
Author: Aristotle
Written: Fourth Century, B.C.

The Ethics is a collection of notes from Aristotle's lectures, taken by his student Nicomachus. The Ethics' elegant inductive arguments, developed hundreds of years before the Christian era, proved that man can indeed understand the basic concepts of good and evil without the aid of Divine Revelation-a fact that many leftists are unwilling to accept in their quest to destroy respect for objective rules of right and wrong.

Unlike today's secularists, Aristotle saw clearly that all human beings have a built-in need to pursue happiness through behaving properly. Aristotle analyzes why not all human actions lead to happiness, and reveals how a man's daily choices between good and evil result in the habits of virtue or vice. Virtuous action, he concludes, makes men happy, whereas vice does not.

7. City of God

Score: 52
Author: St. Augustine of Hippo
Written: A.D. 413-426

The City of God ranks as history's most influential writing by a theologian. Augustine, the cultured bishop of an ancient Roman city in North Africa, created a philosophy of history that answered the argument of pagans who blamed the decline of Rome on the rise of Christianity. (Rome had first been sacked in 410.) Augustine explained human history in terms of Divine Providence and asserted that the Church would bring human history to its final consummation. At that consummation, the two "cities" that remained intermingled on Earth-the pure, virtuous city of God and the sinful, flawed city of man-would be separated into two. Augustine argued that the sinful practices of the pagan Romans helped prompt God to allow the Eternal City's capture by barbarians. Augustine firmly implants teleology-the Aristotelian idea that all things have an ultimate purpose-into history just as previous Christian thinkers had adopted teleology to explain God's plan for individual human beings. For Augustine, all of human history points toward a divine purpose.

9. Confessions

Score: 47
Author: St. Augustine of Hippo
Written: c. A.D. 400

The Confessions is Augustine's spiritual autobiography. Addressed to God, the book bares the author's soul. Here Augustine explains the history of his life in terms of Divine Providence, much as in the City of God he explained the history of Rome. He owns up to the sins that pulled him away from faith despite the exertions of his intensely devout mother, St. Monica. In the course of describing both his exterior and interior life, Augustine reiterates the Christian philosophy of the human person expounded by St. Paul in his epistles. He describes the interplay among passion, will, and reason and attempts to explain why men do evil when they know better.

10. Reflections on the Revolution in France

Score: 44
Author: Edmund Burke
Written: 1790

An Irish-born British politician of the late 18th Century, who was popular in America because of his opposition to taxing the colonies, Burke holds a prominent place in the history of English-speaking conservatives. Indeed, in The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk singled him out as the first modern conservative intellectual.

Burke's early and energetic disapproval of the French Revolution proved prophetic in light of the Reign of Terror that followed. A champion of the inherent wisdom of long-settled traditions, Burke argued that by violently ripping up their nation's institutions root and branch, the French had assured themselves years of chaos.

If changes had to be made in France, he argued, could not the tried-and-true be kept and only the bad discarded? "Is it, then, true," he asked, "that the French government was such as to be incapable or undeserving of reform, so that it was of absolute necessity that the whole fabric should be at once pulled down and the area cleared for the erection of a theoretic, experimental edifice in its place?"


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: books; federalistpapers; highereducation; humanevents; readinglist
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To: LonghornFreeper
Thats funny stuff, really. Theology is the most important topic for Christians, myself included, but it is not a science.

Is Sacred Doctrine a Science?

241 posted on 06/02/2003 5:58:29 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
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To: Mad Dawgg
"I have a project I want you to do!

1. I want it "Fast"

2. I want it "Cheap"

3. I want it "Right"

Your response please. "


Typical management - keeping all the details of 'project' to themselves! LOL! Actually, it's done already...and under budget.
242 posted on 06/02/2003 6:45:06 AM PDT by Blzbba
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To: The Raven
"Liberal Democrats" stand for strong military forces and a foreign policy which puts the United States first? Since when? Hamilton is almost universally condemned by the University Leftists precisely because he was the most far Right of the Founders. It was because of hatred of Hamilton that the Democratic party was founded by Jefferson and Madion.

Jefferson is the father of the RAT party of deceit and demagogery. He totally opposed the strong military, totally opposed a Navy and worked to destroy both while president and before. His power was dependent on the NY RAT machine (which fought Hamilton and the constitution tooth and nail) and rabble rousers across the nation. He totally supported the Reign of Terror in France and schemed incessently to ally us with France.

Hamilton outsmarted him with the funding scheme which was the capitalization of the Blood of the Revolutionaries and a price of Freedom. His brillant insight into funding set the course of the nation on centuries of Economic growth. We are the most powerful nation on earth because of his brilliance in discerning that the capitalized word of America was as valuable as Gold. No wonder he was Washington's closest collaborator for 20 yrs.

Little wonder it took a concentrated conspiracy (now known as the DemocRATic Party) against him to attempt to frustrate his policies (the policies of the Washington administration were Hamilton's.) How ironic that a man like Jefferson: deceitful, hypocritical, dissembling and dishonest could be held higher in the estimation of his countrymen than a man like Hamilton who fought his entire life for freedom and national independence whose integrity was beyond compare whose forthrightedly standing for what he believed earned him the enmity of those who prefered to work in the shadows, through loathsome surrogates, and whose actions do not come close to matching his words. The more one learns of Jefferson the worse he comes off. Of course, if you prefer the Parson Weems type of mythology to cold, hard reality you are welcome to it.
243 posted on 06/02/2003 8:18:41 AM PDT by justshutupandtakeit (RATS will use any means to denigrate George Bush's Victory.)
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To: RobbyS
I was very old before someone pointed out to me that one needs to read his metaphysics in conjunction with his logic. Much of the difficulties of his essentialism went away when I did this.

A great, great book is "An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas". Nice too because it's mercifully brief, about 150 pages or so. A must have for the library. It makes a good gift for college students or the philosophically minded.

244 posted on 06/02/2003 8:45:32 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
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To: Mad Dawgg
He had a saying: "If you want a degree, go to college... If you want an education, go to the library."

So true, but try telling that to HR. But that's a gripe for another day.

245 posted on 06/02/2003 8:48:33 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
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To: Blzbba
LOL! Neither theology nor philosophy has built the bridge you trust when driving your car, the building you trust won't fall over in a windstorm while at work, the house/apmnt/etc you live in, the media you rely on for communication (TV, cellular networks, PCs, Al Gore's Internet, etc.), the vehicles you use for transportation, etc.

I wouldn't want a philosopher to barbeque a hamburger for me either, but that's irrelevant. The assumptions upon which the natural sciences are based are determined by philosophy. Philosophy is therefore logically prior to the natural sciences.

For example, scientific endeavors depend upon certain assumptions such as the fact that the universe is comprehensible, that physical laws are uniform, that one can trust one's senses, that time progresses forward (that is, history is not literally cyclical). The reason why the natural sciences were fructified in the West is because of the influence of Christianity, particularly the influence of the Catholic Church, and even more particularly, because of the Church's dogmatic teaching regarding "Creation from nothing," as Stanley Jaki argues so persuasively.

In Christ and Science (p. 23), Jaki gives four reasons for modern science's unique birth in Christian Western Europe:

1. "Once more the Christian belief in the Creator allowed a break-through in thinking about nature. Only a truly transcendental Creator could be thought of as being powerful enough to create a nature with autonomous laws without his power over nature being thereby diminished. Once the basic among those laws were formulated science could develop on its own terms."

2. "The Christian idea of creation made still another crucially important contribution to the future of science. It consisted in putting all material beings on the same level as being mere creatures. Unlike in the pagan Greek cosmos, there could be no divine bodies in the Christian cosmos. All bodies, heavenly and terrestrial, were now on the same footing, on the same level. this made it eventually possible to assume that the motion of the moon and the fall of a body on earth could be governed by the same law of gravitation. The assumption would have been a sacrilege in the eyes of anyone in the Greek pantheistic tradition, or in any similar tradition in any of the ancient cultures."

3. "Finally, man figured in the Christian dogma of creation as a being specially created in the image of God. This image consisted both in man's rationality as somehow sharing in God's own rationality and in man's condition as an ethical being with eternal responsibility for his actions. Man's reflection on his own rationality had therefore to give him confidence that his created mind could fathom the rationality of the created realm."

4. "At the same time, the very createdness could caution man to guard agains the ever-present temptation to dictate to nature what it ought to be. The eventual rise of the experimental method owes much to that Christian matrix."

Philosophy and theology are nice sciences to talk about, but rarely put food on the table, give you shelter from storms or enemies, etc.

No, they're essential to a true education.

(Yes, I'm an engineer!)

I have a degree in mechanical engineering too. But if you want to read something truly challenging, try the Summa Theologica (and then consider that St. Thomas considered it theology for beginners).

246 posted on 06/02/2003 9:07:05 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
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To: LonghornFreeper
Um, Catholics do not pray to saints, we pray to God. We ask for the intercession of the saints to pray for certain causes, in the same way I would ask you to pray for a cause....no difference.(remember, the soul is immortal, ergo, the saints are very much alive in heaven).

Catholics do not worship Mary, the Mother, of God, we worship God. Catholics venerate Mary, as did Luther. Venerate means To regard with respect, reverence, or heartfelt deference.

In regard to the celibacy issue, the custom is not random, but is well established in the early Church, and can be traced to the spousal relationship Christ has with his Church on earth, a bride/bridegroom relationship that is gender based. Priests are the bridegroom of the Church, which is the bride. This is entirely biblical.

Protestants really need to stop rehashing this nonsense. It makes them look silly.


247 posted on 06/02/2003 9:25:13 AM PDT by RomanCatholicProlifer
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To: Mad Dawgg
He had a saying: "If you want a degree, go to college... If you want an education, go to the library."

Sadly, the libraries in Santa Cruz county don't give you much of an education. When my son had to do a report on nuclear power plants, how they work, there was not one book on the subject. There were however 8 books on the shelves about the deadly human race destroying nuclear power plants that dot our countryside.
248 posted on 06/02/2003 10:40:49 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
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To: Aquinasfan
thanks for your reply.

Based upon the idea that Christianity did much to usher in an "age of Science" (so to speak), I wonder why I am starting to see such a backlash against science from fundamentalist Christians. Fundies who still stick to the myth of Creation and a (approx.) 10,000 year old planet, even in the face of ridiculous amounts of geological evidence that age the planet to 4-5 billion years old. Fundies who'll use the various methods of dating to try and verify a piece of the Ark, or the Shroud of Turin, or the Cross...but vigorously deny the validity of these exact dating methods when they date layers of bedrock to pre-Cambrian periods. Then you have the Roman Catholic Church and many other Christian denominations vigorously opposed to stem-cell research of ANY kind, regardless of the positive health implications it has, and regardless of the source of the stem cells (it doesn't have to come from an aborted fetus, for example).

This really has little to do with your informative post, but I've found the anti-Science movement by religious groups to be rather nauseous and kind of scary, in that some of these groups would apparently be happy to attempt living without any of the knowledge our species has acquired and even frown upon the acquisiton of such knowledge.

oh well - thanks for you information again. I learned a few things, which is always good.
249 posted on 06/02/2003 10:54:55 AM PDT by Blzbba
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To: Blzbba
Then you have the Roman Catholic Church and many other Christian denominations vigorously opposed to stem-cell research of ANY kind, regardless of the positive health implications it has, and regardless of the source of the stem cells (it doesn't have to come from an aborted fetus, for example).

For the record, the Catholic Church only opposes stem cell research which uses stem cells taken from aborted fetuses. This is a provisional and prudential position, as far as I know.

250 posted on 06/02/2003 6:38:57 PM PDT by Aquinasfan
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To: FoxPro
If that is true, then how come when they became the establisment, they replaces high culture with the plastic culture?
251 posted on 06/02/2003 7:38:07 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: AdamSelene235
bump
252 posted on 11/03/2003 8:51:10 PM PST by Centurion2000 (Resolve to perform what you ought, perform without fail what you resolve.)
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To: Remedy
BTTT
253 posted on 02/13/2004 9:05:26 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
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