Our friends at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center launched an interesting program this year in which they are asking authors and experts to tell us why WE should read the books that helped shape them or those that have significantly impacted human history. Through YouTube video lectures and podcasts, these experts will give us core synopses of major works, help us comprehend what we might get out of reading them ourselves in the 21st century, and inspire us to pick up a great book or two this year and see where the adventure takes you.Recently, Amy Willis visited the center to talk about her favorite thinker. Check out the video of her talk below, along with a lightly edited transcript of her lecture.Adam Smith 6.jpg148.88 KB
John Adams, in a letter dated April 22, 1812, confided to Benjamin Rush his belief that George Washington was “too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station and reputation.” This was not the first time that the…
Geoffrey Chaucer’s attack on the clergy in his prologue to The Canterbury Tales takes on new life in the form of the rivalry between the Friar and the Summoner, who each take their turn following the Wife of Bath. In their…
I suspect many admirers of the American Revolution fail to appreciate the influence that the history of ancient Rome, its philosophers and statesmen, and its fate exerted on our founders—almost all Age of Enlightenment thinkers in…
Our friends at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center launched an interesting program this year in which they are asking authors and experts to tell us why WE should read the books that helped shape them or those that have…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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.…
