Reading path
The Architects of Liberty
The foundational arguments for human freedom. Consent of the governed, natural rights, the right to revolution, the social contract, and the long fight to extend liberty beyond the few who first claimed it. These texts shaped revolutions, constitutions, and movements for justice that are still unfinished. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand not just what freedom means, but what it costs.
In the app a path keeps your place, marks what you have read, and hands you the next work when you are ready for it.
The first button needs the app on this device; the second gets it there.
The route
- 1. The ApologyPlato, 399 BCE
- 2. Two Treatises of GovernmentJohn Locke, 1689
- 3. The Social ContractJean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762
- 4. Common SenseThomas Paine, 1776
- 5. Reflections on the Revolution in FranceEdmund Burke, 1790
- 6. A Vindication of the Rights of WomanMary Wollstonecraft, 1792
- 7. Civil DisobedienceHenry David Thoreau, 1849
- 8. The Communist ManifestoKarl Marx & Friedrich Engels, 1848
- 9. The Second SexSimone de Beauvoir, 1949
- 10. Eichmann in JerusalemHannah Arendt, 1963
- 11. I Have a DreamMartin Luther King Jr., 1963
- 12. The Origins of TotalitarianismHannah Arendt, 1951
- 13. Democracy in AmericaAlexis de Tocqueville, 1835
- 14. FacundoDomingo Faustino Sarmiento, 1845
- 15. The Frontier in American HistoryFrederick J. Turner, 1920
- 16. An American DilemmaGunnar Myrdal, 1944
- 17. A Theory of JusticeJohn Rawls, 1971
- 18. The Age of JacksonArthur M. Schlesinger, Jr, 1945
- 19. The Open Society and Its EnemiesKarl Popper, 1945
- 20. The Strange Career of Jim CrowC. Vann Woodward, 1955
- 21. Why We Can't WaitMartin Luther King, 1964
- 22. The American Political TraditionRichard Hofstadter, 1948
- 23. The Contours of American HistoryWilliam Appleman Williams, 1961
- 24. The Promise of American LifeHerbert Croly, 1909
- 25. Narrative of the Life of Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass, 1845
- 26. Of Plymouth PlantationWilliam Bradford, 1856