The Reading Room

The OLL blog explores the fascinating, vital, and often surprising texts and people that fill our library. Come talk in our library!

Dante, Statius, Virgil and the Nature of Being in Dante’s Divine Comedy

By: Alexander Schmid

When one lets drip a drop of water into a placid lake, what happens? Circles ripple from the origin. What then is the drop of water, exactly? Is it the water which drops into and merges with the larger body of water, or is it the ripples it creates, material or efficient cause, as Aristotle would ask?
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The Other Bennett Sister

By: Renee Wilmeth

“Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet’s being quite unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still…
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OLL’s April Birthday: David Ricardo (April 18, 1772 – September 11, 1823)

By: Peter Carl Mentzel

April’s OLL Birthday Essay is in honor of the English stockbroker, political economist, and parliamentarian David Ricardo.  During his relatively short life, Ricardo made contributions to the field of economics that were, and…
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Cobden’s Age of Improvement

By: Janet Bufton

Richard Cobden reminds us that the cause of free trade is not one of bloodless economics, but of improvement, prosperity, and peace. 
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OLL’s March Birthday: Maimonides (30 March 1135 [?] – 12 December 1204)

By: Peter Carl Mentzel

March’s OLL birthday essay is in honor of the great Jewish rabbi, legal scholar, philosopher, community leader, and physician Moses ben Maimon, better known by the Hellenized version of his name, Maimonides.  In Hebrew he is…
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Walt Whitman Remembers the Ladies

By: Steve Ealy

In both poetry and prose Walt Whitman envisions an America in which men and women are seen as equals. In an early draft (1847) of Leaves of Grass he wrote, “I am the poet of women as well as men / The woman is not less than the man.…
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Welcome Home, Quasimodo! A Tale of Two Notre Dames

By: Walter Donway

Setting: Present-day Notre Dame Cathedral. It is nightfall.
The great, long-silent bells toll, their resonant voices echoing across the Paris sky. Now, a lone figure moves among the towering spires, the freshly restored stonework,…
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OLL’s February Birthday: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. (February 26, 1671 - February 4, 1713)

By: Peter Carl Mentzel

February’s OLL Birthday essay is dedicated to Anthony Ashley Cooper, better known to history as the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, or sometimes just Shaftesbury. He was an important statesman and Whig politician during the turbulent…
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The Logic of Desire: From Homer’s Odyssey to Alice in Wonderland

By: Alexander Schmid

While one idly day-dreams, one frequently imagines how the world and all within it might be different. What if the clouds were red? What if I won a million dollars, tax-free? What if I did not have to wake up at 5 a.m. during the…
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Liberalism in The True Believer

By: Janet Bufton

In November, Liberty Fund hosted a virtual reading group on Eric Hoffer's short book, The True Believer. 
One topic of discussion was Hoffer's conservatism, which is implicit to his theories of mass movements. One place it’s…
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Careless People in the Great American Novel

By: Harrison Layman

The Great Gatsby ends on a sad note. The book's namesake, Gatsby, lies dead in a pool. He experiences a second death when his funeral is sparsely attended. The house that was so full when he was alive lies empty in his death. George…
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Rousseau Dissents from the Modern World

By: Walter Donway

“I ask: which of the two, civil or natural life, is more likely to become insufferable to those who live it? We see about us practically no people who do not complain about their existence...[but] has anyone ever heard of a savage…
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To Exonerate God, Rousseau Must Make Man Depraved

By: Walter Donway

Professor Alan Kors explains that the young Rousseau did not trust the Paris philosophes. He met with them in the cafes but did not like their deism. He had known and argued with atheists. The philosophes seemed to him to seize upon…
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The Reading Room Archives

Reading Room Contributors

Alexander Schmid

Alexander Schmid

Renee Wilmeth

Renee Wilmeth

Peter Carl Mentzel

Peter Carl Mentzel

Janet Bufton

Janet Bufton