The following works should be familiar to graduate students offering political theory as their major or minor. The list indicates the range of preparation needed for the comprehensive examination. Masters students should pay special attention to works preceded by asterisks. Doctoral students are expected to have a more advanced and in-depth grasp of included materials. Revised September 2020
Classical, Christian and Modern Primary Works
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Plato |
*Republic |
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Apology |
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Crito |
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*Laws |
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*Gorgias |
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| Aristotle |
*Politics |
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*Nicomachean Ethics |
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| Cicero |
On Duties |
| Augustine |
*City of God (Selections) |
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Political Writings |
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| Aquinas |
*Summa (selections, esp. Treatise on Law") |
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Political Writings (ed. Henry Paolucci) |
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| Thomas More |
Utopia |
| Dante |
On Monarchy |
| Nicholas of Cusa |
On Catholic Concordance |
| Machiavelli |
*Prince |
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Discourses |
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| Hobbes |
*Leviathan |
| Locke |
*Two Treatises on Government |
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*Letter Concerning Toleration |
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| Rousseau |
*First and Second Discourses |
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*Social Contract |
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| Burke |
*Reflections on the Revolution in France |
| Kant |
*Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals |
| Montesquieu |
*Spriit of the Laws (selections) |
| Adam Smith |
*Wealth of Nations |
| Hegel |
*Philosophy of Right |
| J.S. Mill |
*On Liberty |
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Utilitarianism |
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| DeTocqueville |
*Democracy in America |
| Max Stirner |
The Ego and Its Own |
| Marx and Engels |
*A Marx-Engels Reader (ed. Robert Tucker) (selections) |
| Max Weber |
*The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism "Science as a Vocation" "Politics as a Vocation" |
| Freud |
Civilization and its Discontents |
| Publius |
*Federalist Papers |
| Thomas Jefferson |
Life and Selected Writings (eds. Koch and Peden) (selections) |
| John Calhoun |
*Disquistion on Government |
| Niezsche |
*Birth of Tragedy |
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The Use and Abuse of History |
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Thus Spoke Zarathustra |
Other Works
| Adorno & Horkheimer | Dialectic of Englightenment |
| Arendt | Human Condition |
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*Origins of Totalitarianism (selections) |
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| Irving Babbitt |
*Democracy and Leadership |
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Rosseau and Romanticism |
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| Isaiah Berlin |
*Four Essays on Liberty |
| Ernst Cassirer |
An Essay on Man |
| Benedetto Croce |
Politics and Morals |
| Simone de Beauvoir |
The Second Sex |
| John Dewey |
The Public and Its Problems |
| A.P. D'Entrèves |
The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought (selections) |
| Michel Foucault |
Language, Countermemory, Practice |
| Jurgen Habermas |
Philosophical Discourse of Modernity |
| John Hallowell |
Moral Foundation of Democracy |
| Friedrich Hayek |
*Road the Serfdom |
| Russell Kirk |
*Conservative Mind |
| Forrest MacDonald |
Novus Ordo Seclorum |
| Alasdair MacIntyre |
*After Virtue |
| Jacques Maritain |
Man and the State |
| Charles McIlwain |
*Constitutionalism Ancient and Modern |
| Robert Nisbet |
*Quest for Community |
| Michael Oakeshott |
On Human Conduct |
| John Rawls |
Theory of Justice |
| Wilhelm Roepke |
*A Human Economy |
| Heinrich Rommen |
The State in Catholic Political Thought |
| Claes Ryn |
*Democracy and the Ethical Life |
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Will, Imagination, and Reason |
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*A Common Human Ground |
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| George Sabine |
History of Political Philosophy |
| Yves Simon |
Philosophy of Democratic Government |
| Quentin Skinner |
Foundations of Modern Political Thought (2 vols.) |
| Leo Strauss |
*Natural Right and History |
| Charles Taylor |
Sources of the Self |
| Brian Tierney |
The Idea of Natural Rights |
| Eric Voegelin |
*Order and History (selections, Voegelin Reader) |
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*The New Science of Politics |
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History of Political Science (8 vols.) (selections) |
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| David Walsh |
After Ideology |
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The Growth of the Liberal Soul |
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*The Modern Philosophical Revolution |
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*Politics of the Person as the Politics of Being |
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| Gerard Yates, ed. |
Papal Thought on the State |