Chicago Perspectives on Current Events: A Reading List of Books to Think With
In today’s never-ending news cycle, it can be hard to stay grounded and make sense of the flood of information. So, we offer here a list of books to help us think through these times. Informed by the University of Chicago’s trademark openness to the free exchange of ideas, the Press has published many great philosophers, political theorists, and economists from Aristotle to Machiavelli to Tocqueville to Hannah Arendt to Milton Friedman to Gabriel Zucman. Read on for a selection of thinkers who might help us all organize and inform our thoughts.
All of the books below are available for 40% off when you use the code PERSPECTIVES40 on our website at checkout.
Ancient Philosophy
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle, Translated by Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins, with an Interpretive Essay, Notes, and Glossary
“This edition these brings the original text within the compass of every intelligent reader. . . . Brilliant and readable.”—New York Times Book Review
Aristotle’s Politics, Second Edition
Aristotle, Translated and with an Introduction, Notes, and Glossary by Carnes Lord
“Lord’s translation is clearly the best available.”—Claremont Review of Books
Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Translated with an Introduction and Commentary by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long
“The Stoic ideas are as relevant now as they were in the days of the emperor Nero and Garver and Long have done Seneca (and us) a great service in making the old man speak so clearly once again.”—Classics for All Reviews
The Complete Works: Handbook, Discourses, and Fragments
Epictetus, Edited and Translated by Robin Waterfield
“Waterfield’s clear, readable translation brings out Epictetus’ humor and conversational tone as well as his philosophical vision.”—London Review of Books
European Philosophy
Alexis de Tocqueville, Edited and translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop
“Mansfield and Winthrop have made a remarkably comprehensive and tightly argued case for Tocqueville as the greatest political theorist of democracy, a theorist who is just as relevant today as he was in the nineteenth century.”—New York Review of Books
The Prince, Second Edition
Niccolò Machiavelli, Translated and with an Introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield
“Of the other available [translations], that of Harvey C. Mansfield makes the necessary compromises between exactness and readability, as well as providing an excellent introduction and notes.”—The Wall Street Journal
Twentieth-Century Thought
The Human Condition, Second Edition
Hannah Arendt, With an Introduction by Margaret Canovan and a New Foreword by Danielle Allen
“The combination of tremendous intellectual power with great common sense makes Arendt’s insights into history and politics seem both amazing and obvious.”—Mary McCarthy, New Yorker, praise for the first edition
Milton Friedman, With a New Foreword by Binyamin Appelbaum
TIME magazine, All‑TIME 100 Best Nonfiction Books
“Full of tightly reasoned arguments about the principles of economic freedom in various spheres of life.”—Wall Street Journal
The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents—The Definitive Edition
F. A. Hayek, Edited with a Foreword and Introduction by Bruce Caldwell
“An arresting call to all well‑intentioned planners and socialists, to all those who are sincere democrats and liberals at heart to stop, look, and listen.”—New York Times Book Review, on the first edition
Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, Third Edition
George Lakoff
“Moral Politics isn’t just an ‘issue‑by‑issue debate.’ . . . It is an unusual mix of judicious scholarship, tendentious journalism, and inflammatory wake‑up call.”—San Francisco Chronicle, praise for the first edition
Reinhold Niebuhr, With a new Introduction by Andrew J. Bacevich
“The elegance, strength, and charm of Niebuhr’s writing invite quotation at every turn.”—New York Review of Books
“Niebuhr is important for the Left today precisely because he warned about America’s tendency—including the Left’s tendency—to do bad things in the name of idealism.”—The Good Society
Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, Expanded Edition
Jonathan Rauch, With a new Foreword by George F. Will and a new Afterword by the author
“An eloquent attack on the advocates of political correctness.”—The Economist
Leo Straus
“Strauss . . . makes a significant contribution towards an understanding of the intellectual crisis in which we find ourselves . . . and brings to his task an admirable scholarship and a brilliant, incisive mind.”—American Political Science Review
Ideas Have Consequences, Expanded Edition
Richard M. Weaver, With a new Foreword by Roger Kimball and Afterword by Ted J. Smith, III
“This deeply prophetic book not only launched the renaissance of philosophical conservatism in this country, but in the process gave us an armory of insights into the diseases besetting the national community that is as timely today as when it first appeared.”—Robert Nisbet
Twenty-First-Century Perspectives
Narrowing the Channel: The Politics of Regulatory Protection in International Trade
Robert Gulotty
“Gulotty argues that globalization and globalized firms can paradoxically hinder rather than foster economic cooperation, as larger firms seek to protect their markets through strict product regulations. He illustrates the problem through an analysis of contemporary rulemaking in the United States and the European Union in the areas of health, safety, and environmental standards.”—Law and Social Inquiry
The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism
Clara E. Mattei
“Mattei reminds us that . . . austerity is a one‑sided class war, conducted in numbers and defended by economists’ jargon.”—Guardian
The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens
Gabriel Zucman, Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan and With a Foreword by Thomas Piketty
“Gabriel Zucman has two goals in The Hidden Wealth of Nations: to specify the costs of tax havens, and to figure out how to reduce those costs. He writes with moral passion, even outrage.”—New York Review of Books