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"For more than two thousand years, Sun-tzu's The Art of War has provided leaders with essential advice on battlefield tactics, managing troops and terrain, and employing cunning and deception. But its underlying philosophy lends itself to infinite applications: an elemental part of Chinese culture, it has also become a touchstone for the Western struggle for survival and success, whether in battle or in business or in relationships. Now, in his crisp,...

First published in 1516, Saint Thomas More's Utopia is one of the most important works of European humanism. Through the voice of the mysterious traveler Raphael Hythloday, More describes a pagan, communist city-state governed by reason. Addressing such issues as religious pluralism, women's rights, state-sponsored education, colonialism, and justified warfare, Utopia seems remarkably contemporary nearly five centuries after it was written, and it...

25 illustrations in full color from a 14th century manuscript

The landmark political treatise that refuted the so-called divine right of kings and established the principles of representative government   "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."   With these stirring words, Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins The Social Contract-the first shot in a battle of ideas that would set the stage for the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. In the feverish days of the Enlightenment, Rousseau...

Contains an examination of the Bible that reveals its contradictions and attacks religious superstition.

Written sometime in the 4th Century BC, Aristotle's "Rhetoric" is the definitive treatise on the art of persuasive public speaking. The art of oratorical persuasion was an essential skill for the successful politician during the days of ancient Greece and Aristotle's "Rhetoric" is considered one of the greatest works from antiquity on the subject. Like many of the surviving works attributable to Aristotle, "Rhetoric" was not intended for public dissemination,...

Written in the 12th century in Arabic by a faithful Jewish man, "The Guide for the Perplexed" is a work that explores the contradiction a very intelligent mind clearly saw between the tradition in which he was raised to believe and the growing philosophy of Arabian and Western culture. In Maimonides' time, there was an emerging disparity between the Law and a new level of philosophical sophistication, which he attempts to bridge in this work, primarily...

One of historys greatest political philosophers, Niccolò Machiavelli is notorious for his treatise The Prince, which has become a cornerstone of modern political theory. Written in 1513 and published in 1532, after Machivellis death, The Prince immediately provoked controversy that has continued unabated to this day. Defining human nature as inherently selfish, Machiavelli proposes that social conflict and violence are natural phenomena that help...