The Online Library of Liberty
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Perennial Questions in the Pursuit of Happiness
This List Is By:
Thomas C. Behr
University of Houston
Director of Liberal Studies at UH, a new B.A. degree program that has students complete three minors instead of a traditional major and minor. Besides the three minors, students have 42 credit hours of core requirements and two years of a foreign language required. LS majors must also complete a “capstone” class, ILAS 4350 “Senior Seminar in Liberal Studies” that is a great books course, offered every semester.
I’m looking to develop an online reading list for that course for when it is taught during the summer semester in Rome, Italy (five weeks in Rome) beginning this coming summer.
Best regards to my LF friends!
Readings in the “Great Books” to contemplate the perennial questions, to hone critical reasoning, reading, writing, and discussion skills for life-long learning. The required “capstone” course for University of Houston’s B.A. in Liberal Studies. Dr. Thomas Behr, J.D., Ph.D., Director.
Moses, The Second Book of Moses, called Exodus (KJV) [1885]
Moses, The Parallel Bible. The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the Original Tongues: being the Authorised Version arranged in parallel columns with the Revised Version (Oxford University Press, 1885). The Book of Exodus.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2016 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Saint Matthew, The Gospel according to S. Matthew (KJV) [1885]
Saint Matthew, The Parallel Bible. The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the Original Tongues: being the Authorised Version arranged in parallel columns with the Revised Version (Oxford University Press, 1885). The Gospel according to S. Matthew.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2154 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Micah, Micah (KJV) [1885]
Micah, The Parallel Bible. The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the Original Tongues: being the Authorised Version arranged in parallel columns with the Revised Version (Oxford University Press, 1885). Micah.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1005 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Buddha, The Gospel of Buddha [1894]
Buddha, The Gospel of Buddha. Compiled from Ancient Records by Paul Carus. Illustrated by O. Kopetzky (Chicago and London: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1915).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2268 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Confucius, The Ethics of Confucius [1915]
Confucius, The Ethics of Confucius. The Sayings of the Master and his Disciples upon the Conduct of “The Superior Man”, arranged according to the plan of Confucius with running commentary by Miles Menander Dawson, with a foreword by Wu Ting Fang (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1915).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2065 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamesh [1920]
Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamesh, with an Account of the Royal Libraries of Ninevah (London: Harrison and Sons, 1920).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1268 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Old Testament (Various Authors), The Book of Job (KJV) [1885]
Old Testament (Various Authors), The Parallel Bible. The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the Original Tongues: being the Authorised Version arranged in parallel columns with the Revised Version (Oxford University Press, 1885). The Book of Job.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/998 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Old Testament (Various Authors), The First Book of Samuel (KJV) [1885]
Old Testament (Various Authors), The Parallel Bible. The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the Original Tongues: being the Authorised Version arranged in parallel columns with the Revised Version (Oxford University Press, 1885). The First Book of Samuel.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2021 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Plato, Dialogues, vol. 2 - Meno, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Gorgias, Appendix I - Lesser, Hippias, Alcibiades I, Menexenus, Appendix II - Alcibiades II, Eryxias [1892]
Plato, The Dialogues of Plato translated into English with Analyses and Introductions by B. Jowett, M.A. in Five Volumes. 3rd edition revised and corrected (Oxford University Press, 1892).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/766 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics [1893]
Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle, trans. F.H. Peters, M.A. 5th edition (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co., 1893).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/903 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Friendship (De Amicitia) [44 BC]
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Cicero De Amicitia (On Friendship) and Scipio’s Dream, translated with an Introduction and Notes by Andrew P. Peabody (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1887).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/544 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Epictetus, The Works of Epictetus. Consisting of His Discourses, in Four Books, The Enchiridion, and Fragments [100 AD]
Epictetus, The Works of Epictetus. Consisting of His Discourses, in Four Books, The Enchiridion, and Fragments. A Translation from the Greek based on that of Elizabeth Carter, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1865).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1477 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Saint Paul, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (KJV) [1885]
Saint Paul, The Parallel Bible. The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the Original Tongues: being the Authorised Version arranged in parallel columns with the Revised Version (Oxford University Press, 1885). The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1191 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Philip Schaff, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Vol. 1 (The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustine) [1886]
Philip Schaff, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff, LL.D. (Buffalo: The Christian Literature Co., 1886). Vol. 1 The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustin, with a Sketch of his Life and Work.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1903 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas Ethicus: or, the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas, 2 vols. [1274]
St. Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas Ethicus: or, the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas. A Translation of the Principal Portions of the Second part of the Summa Theologica, with Notes by Joseph Rickaby, S.J. (London: Burns and Oates, 1892).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1966 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Misc (Magna Carta), Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John, with an Historical Introduction [1215]
Misc (Magna Carta), Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John, with an Historical Introduction, by William Sharp McKechnie (Glasgow: Maclehose, 1914).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/338 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Michel de Montaigne, Essays of Montaigne, in 10 vols. [1580]
Michel de Montaigne, Essays of Montaigne, trans. Charles Cotton, revised by William Carew Hazlett (New York: Edwin C. Hill, 1910). In 10 vols.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/168 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ideal Empires and Republics. Rousseau’s Social Contract, More’s Utopia, Bacon’s New Atlantis, Campanella’s City of the Sun [1901]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ideal Empires and Republics. Rousseau’s Social Contract, More’s Utopia, Bacon’s New Atlantis, Campanella’s City of the Sun, with an Introduction by Charles M. Andrews (Washington: M. Walter Dunne, 1901).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2039 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Voltaire, Candide, ou l’Optimisme; traduit de l’Allemand de M. le Docteur Ralph [1759]
Voltaire, Candide, ou l’Optimisme; traduit de l’Allemand de M. le Docteur Ralph (n.p., 1759).
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/973 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Moses, The First Book of Moses, called Genesis (KJV) [1885]
Moses, The Parallel Bible. The Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of the Original Tongues: being the Authorised Version arranged in parallel columns with the Revised Version (Oxford University Press, 1885). The Book of Genesis.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2015 on 2011-05-14
The text is in the public domain.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, 4 vols. [1835]
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition of De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Eduardo Nolla, translated from the French by James T. Schleifer. A Bilingual French-English edition, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2010). 4 vols.
Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2284 on 2011-05-14
This bilingual edition of Tocqueville’s work contains a new English translation of the French critical edition published in 1990. The copyright to the French version is held by J. Vrin and it is not available online. The copyright to the English translation, the translator’s note, and index is held by Liberty Fund.