Year One in Review

The first year is almost done so I thought I'd take a look back (maybe more than one look!) at what I've read. 

• January started with Plato's 'Apology', which is Socrates completely unapologetic defense of his style of teaching.  He enjoyed pricking the pompous and powerful and talked himself into dying because of it.  For what it's worth, I still don't understand his motives.  
• Then there were a couple of plays from Aristophanes.  'Lysistrata' showed us a group of women who decided to withhold sex until their men stopped the wars.  'Clouds', which was new to me, was about using philosophy and debate to manipulate yourself out of debt.  Very funny stuff!
• February got us back to Plato, with the start of his 'Republic'.  Also some Aristotle from 'Ethics' and 'Politics'.  I remember snatches of this, but not much.  Both of them talked about creating ideal forms of government and understanding the forms that brought us government in the first place.
• On to March and we spent some time with Plutarch and his comparative histories.  We read about four different (very different) types of rulers.  I was struck by how many thinkers in the series had read Plutarch while they were young.  Is there a version for kids out today?
• April was heavy on the religion.  We did two books of the New Testament, 'Matthew' and 'Acts'.  It had been quite some time since I'd read either.  We also had part of St Augustine's 'Confessions'.  Very compelling and touching.
• May was decidedly not religious.   This was Machiavelli's 'The Prince', a classic of power politics and manipulation.  Frankly, it wasn't what I expected.  I thought it had more to do with intrigue, but it was set more at the state level and less the personal.
• Maybe the most mind blowing of the readings came in June, with Rabelais's 'Gargantua'.  Good lord.  A man of great humor, and knowledge.  And no recognition of modern boundaries of propriety.   I liked him.
• July?  In July I was introduced to the decidedly readable Montaigne.  We did about ten of his essays, all very interesting.  The one that stuck with me the most is his writings on the understandings of the natives of the Americas.  I'll return to him, I'm sure.
• To read or not to read?  August's question was simple.  I reread and enjoyed 'Hamlet' quite a bit.  I'd never actually studied it before.  Never realized just how open ended the whole story is.  I would love, love, love to know what the first performances were like!
• September brought us to the Enlightenment, with readings from Locke and Rousseau.  They had varied ideas about how government should be set up, but both of them envisioned a post monarchical world.  Locke especially was like reading the first drafts for modern democracy.
• October gave us Gibbon, who frankly was probably my least favorite of the year.  Some interesting stuff on early church formation but his overall ideas didn't convince me.  (The fault may have been mine though.  It's quite possible I didn't pay him enough attention.)
• Just in time for the November elections, we got a full set of readings from the founding documents of the United States.  I'd read the 'Declaration of Independence' and the 'Constitution' before, but the 'Articles of Confederation' and the 'Federalist Papers' were new to me.  The Articles was much more bare bones than I had thought before.  And the Federalist was more accessible and interesting than I had previously thought.
• And finally December.  Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' was foundational and some of it is interesting, some long.  The counter balance here is Marx's 'Communist Manifesto'.  Frankly, the Manifesto made for more interesting reading.  I wasn't even a little bit convinced, but it was interesting.  

More to come...