Great Books Ladder · High school · Grade 7–12

The 19th Century

Volumes 40 to 53: Hegel, Mill, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Tocqueville, Marx and Engels, Faraday, Darwin, William James, and the great novelists from Goethe and Austen to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Twain.

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23 topics in 4 units. Builds on The Enlightenment. Leads to The 20th Century. Not sure this is the right course? Find your rung.

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Unit 1 Philosophers

6 topics

Hegel, Mill, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.

  1. Hegel: The Philosophy of Right (being written)
  2. Hegel: The Philosophy of History (being written)
  3. Mill: On Liberty (being written)
  4. Mill: Utilitarianism and Representative Government (being written)
  5. Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling (being written)
  6. Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil (being written)

Unit 2 Society and History

3 topics

Tocqueville on American democracy, and Marx and Engels on capital.

  1. Tocqueville: Democracy in America (being written)
  2. Marx and Engels: The Communist Manifesto (being written)
  3. Marx: Capital (being written)

Unit 3 Science

4 topics

Faraday's electricity, Darwin's evolution and William James's psychology.

  1. Faraday: Experimental Researches in Electricity
  2. Darwin: The Origin of Species (being written)
  3. Darwin: The Descent of Man (being written)
  4. William James: The Principles of Psychology (being written)

Unit 4 Novels and Plays

10 topics

Goethe, Austen, Balzac, Melville, Dickens, Tolstoy, George Eliot, Ibsen, Dostoevsky and Twain.

  1. Goethe: Faust (being written)
  2. Jane Austen: Emma (being written)
  3. Balzac: Cousin Bette (being written)
  4. Melville: Moby-Dick (being written)
  5. Dickens: Little Dorrit (being written)
  6. Tolstoy: War and Peace (being written)
  7. George Eliot: Middlemarch (being written)
  8. Ibsen: The Plays (being written)
  9. Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov (being written)
  10. Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (being written)
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