Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (a.d. 121 180) succeeded his adoptive father as emperor of Rome in a.d. 161 and Meditations remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical …
Writing just after the French and American revolutions, Mary Wollstonecraft firmly established the demand for women’s emancipation in the context of the ever-widening urge for …
Describing his collection of Essays as ‘a book consubstantial with its author’, Montaigne identified both the power and the charm of a work which introduces us to one of the most …
Written over two thousand years ago, The Art of War contains penetrating insights into the nature of power, inter-state rivalry, realpolitik and military success, relevant to any …
Confucius is one of the most humane, rational, and lucid of moral teachers, concerned not with arcane metaphysics, but with practical issues of life and conduct. What is virtue? …
In this classic of American literature, Thoreau gives an account of his two years experience of the 'simple life' in the woods, telling how he sought and found material and …
ON WAR is the most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy. Since the work's first appearance in 1832 …
Although Plato's celebrated work of philosophy describes a society which to some seems the ideal human community and to others like a totalitarian nightmare, it also raises …
Published in the same year as the American Declaration of Independence, The Wealth of Nations has had an equally great impact on the course of modern history. Adam Smith’s …
Tom Paine is celebrated for the part he played in both the American and French Revolutions. Though an Englishman by birth, he reacted violently against the political order of …
