| I've meant to compile this list, so you just inspired me. I wish the Durants had had the stamina for one more volume. I don't know much about the European revolutions of 1848 and would have like to read about that time from them. I already had read a lot of ancient Greek literature in translation as well as The Pentateuch, all the historical books of the Old Testament and the Gospels. Western Civilization springs from intellectual roots in Athens and Jerusalem, so any survey has to include that heritage. My degree is in Comparative Literature, so I put a lot of stock in origninal source material. The only languages I read are English and German, so everything is in English or translation except Faust, which IMO would be a waste in translation. The books I read for my survey (this was my survey to fill in my personal Bildungslöcke) are not all classics, and not even all to be recommended. It may appear surprisingly heavy on 20th century, but a lot of intellectual threads I thought I should understand better got kicked off in that century. In more or less chronological order by authorship or content (and I've probably forgotten a few): Euclid The Elements Arrian The Campaigns of Alexander Garmonsway (trans.) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Komroff (ed.) The Travels of Marco Polo Haydn The Counter-Renaissance Braudel The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II, Vol I&II Pascal The Thoughts Spinoza The Ethics Christianson In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton & his Times Newton Opticks Newton Principia (get the modern English translation by U.C. Press) Hampson The Enlightenment Voltaire Candide Rousseau The Social Contract Boswell Life of Johnson Goethe Faust Phillips The Cousins' Wars Schom Napoleon Bonaparte Heidler & Heidler Old Hickory's War Babbage On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures de Toqueville Democracy in America Darwin On the Origen of Species Foote The Civil War: A Narrative Maurois Disraeli Twain Life on the Mississippi Spector Admiral of the New Empire, The Life and Career of George Dewey Cardwell The Norton History of Technology Abbott Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions Meyer & Brysac Tournament of Shaddows, The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia Doughty Travels in Arabia Deserta Lefevre The Golden Flood Massie Dreadnought, Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom Durant The Story of Philosophy Cardozo The Nature of the Judicial Process Schapiro The Communist Party of the Soviet Union Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery Kershaw Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris Blemenson (ed.) The Patton Papers (1940-1945) Hayek The Road to Serfdom von Mises Human Action Skinner Walden Two Chambers Witness Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Guevara Guerrilla Warfare Cleaver Soul on Ice Lacey The Kingdom, Arabia & the House of Saud Durant The Lessons of History Hackworth Lessons Learned, Vietnam Primer Quigley Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time EDIT: Just remembered two more Hobbes Leviathan Locke Two Treatises of Government |
(Since you've read Faust and the intial post mentions Gibbon's Rise and Fall, you might be interested in Theodor Mommsen's "History of Rome" as well.)