Reading List

(Note that this list does not include essays, articles, online resources, etc.)

Currently Reading

War in Human Civilization, by Azar Gat

Ninety-Six Sermons of Lancelot Andrewes: Volume One, The Nativity, Repentance & Fasting, by Lancelot Andrewes

Previously Read (in order)

2023

Seafaring and Civilization: Maritime Perspectives on World History, by Philip de Souza

Tartessos and the Phoenicians in Iberia, by S. Celestiano and C. Lopez-Ruiz

Ancient Mediterranean Trade: The History of the Trade Routes Throughout the Region and the Birth of Globalization, by the Charles River Editors

World System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change, Eds. R.A. Denemark, et al.

God’s Order and Natural Law: The Works of the Laudian Divines, by Iain M. MacKenzie

King, Priest, and Prophet: A Trinitarian Theology of Atonement, by Robert J. Sherman

The Melchizedek Tradition: A Critical Examination of the Sources to the Fifth Century A.D. and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, by Fred L. Horton, Jr.

Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers, by Donald Fairbairn

Contagion: How Commerce Has Spread Disease, by Mark Harrison

What Makes Civilization?: The Ancient Near East and the Future of the West, by David Wengrow

Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History, by Douglass C. North et al.

Enemies of Civilization: Attitudes toward Foreigners in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China, by Mu-Chou Po

Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, by James C. Scott

2022

The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, by Alan Krieder

Christian Antioch: A Study of Early Christian Thought in the East, by D.S. Wallace-Hadrill

From Modernity to Cosmodernity: Science, Culture, and Spirituality, by Basarab Nicolescu

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization, by Thomas Homer-Dixon

Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus, by Mark A. Chancey

Seafaring and Civilisation: Maritime Perspectives on World History, by Philip de Souza

Technics and Human Development (Vol. I of Myth of the Machine), by Lewis Mumford

The Theory of Social Revolutions, by Brooks Adams

Carthage: A Biography, by Dexter Hoyos

Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome, by Arthur M. Eckstein

Rome Enters the Greek East: From Anarchy to Hierarchy in the Hellenistic Mediterranean, 230-170 BC, by Arthur M. Eckstein

Myth, Cosmos, and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction, by Bruce Lincoln

Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe, by Peter Heather

2021

St. Athanasius on the Incarnation: The Treatise De Incarnatione Verbi Dei

The War of the Three Gods: Romans, Persians, and the Rise of Islam, by Peter Crawford

The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy and the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia, and Han China, by Raoul McLaughlin

The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean: The Ancient World Economy & the Kingdoms of Africa, Arabia, & India, by Raoul McLaughlin

The Open Sea: The Economic Life of the Ancient Mediterranean World from the Iron Age to the Rise of Rome, by J.G. Manning

Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, by Colin Renfrew

The War of the Gods: The Social Code in Indo-European Mythology, by Jarich G. Oosten

Militarism and the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe, by Robert Drews

Selections from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VII, Ed. Philip Schaff – Lactantius’ Divine Institutes

Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church, by Hans Boersma

Deification in the Latin Patristic Tradition, Ed. Jared Ortiz

Ecclesiology and Theosis in the Gospel of John, by Andrew J. Byers

Elect in the Son – A Study in the Doctrine of Election, by R. Shank

After Collapse – The Regeneration of Complex Societies, Eds. G.M. Schwartz and J.J. Nichols

The Speed of Light: Constancy and Cosmos, by David A. Grandy

The Frankish Kingdoms Under the Carolingians, 751-987, by Rosamond McKitterick

Selections from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I, Ed. Philip Schaff – Irenaeus’ Against Heresies

2020

Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son, Lives and Afterlives, Eds. Elizabeth Carney and Daniel Ogden

By the Spear: Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Rise and Fall of the Macedonian Empire, by Ian Worthington

Lysimachus: A Study in Early Hellenistic Kingship, by Helen S. Lund

War in the Hellenistic World: A Social and Cultural History, by Angelos Chaniotis

The Aristocratic Temper of Greek Civilization, by Chester G. Starr

From Samarkand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire, by Susan Sherwin-White and Amelie Kuhrt

Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great’s Empire, by Robin Waterford

Hellenism in the East: The Interaction of Greek and Non-Greek Civilizations from Syria to Central Asia After Alexander, Eds. Amelie Kuhrt and Susan Sherwin-White

From Alexander to Cleopatra: The Hellenistic World, by Michael Grant

The Betrayal of Tradition: Essays on the Spiritual Crisis of Modernity, Ed. Harry Oldmeadow

God and Work: Aspects of Art and Tradition, Ed. Brian Keeble

The Seneca Effect: Why Growth is Slow but Collapse is Rapid, by Ugo Bardi

Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England, by Richard Abels

Saxon Identities, 150 – 900 AD, by Robert Flierman

The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, by Norman Russell

Britons in Anglo-Saxon England, Ed. Nick Higham

Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, by Barbara Yorke

2019

Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland, by Bryan Sikes

Badon and the Early Wars for Wessex, circa 500 to 710, by David Cooper

The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, by James G. Leyburn

War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires, by Peter Turchin

Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire, Eds. B. Bailyn and P.D. Morgan

The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, by Marcel Mauss

Secular Cycles, by Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov

Missing 411: Eastern United States, by David Paulides

Colonial Encounters in Ancient Iberia, Eds. Michael Dietler and Carolina Lopez-Ruiz

Indo-European Poetry and Myth, by M.L. West

Out of the Dark, by David Weber

Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present, by Christopher Beckwith

The Trojans and Their Neighbors, by Trevor Bryce

Celtic Britain, by John Rhys (1904)

The Domination of the Draka quadrilogy (Marching through Georgia, Under the Yoke, The Stone Dogs, and Drakon), by S.M. Stirling

Languages from the World of the Bible, Ed. Holger Gzella

Priests, Warriors, and Cattle: A Study in the Ecology of Religions, by Bruce Lincoln

Heaven, Heroes, and Happiness: The Indo-European Roots of Western Ideology, by Shan M.M. Winn

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, by Eric H. Cline

Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age: The Political Thought of Johan and Pieter de la Court, by Arthur Weststeijn

Old English and Its Closest Relatives, by Orrin W. Robinson

2018

An Inquiry into the Heresies of the Apostolic Age, by Edward Burton

Lectures upon the Ecclesiastical History of the First Three Centuries, Vols. I and II, by Edward Burton

The Sons of Vulcan: The Story of Metals, by Thomas Hibben

Selections from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I, Ed. Philip Schaff – Justin Martyr

The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity, by Richard Fletcher

Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall, by Peter Turchin

Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East, by Bruce Louden

On the Trinity, by Novatian

2017

The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East, by Robert Drews

Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine, by Khaled Anatolios

On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History, by Thomas Carlyle

In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth, by J.P. Mallory

The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects, by Lewis Mumford

Selections from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vols I and II, Ed. Philip Schaff – Clement of Rome, Mathetes, Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, Barnabas, fragments of Papias, Pastor of Hermas, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, and Athenagoras

On Duties (De Officiis), by Marcus Tullius Cicero, Trans. Walter Miller

Atlantic Europe in the First Millennium BC: Crossing the Divide, Eds. T. Moore and X.-L. Armada

The Law of Civilisation and Decay, by Brooks Adams

Popular Government, by Henry Sumner Maine

Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, Ed. Irad Malkin

Latter Day Pamphlets, by Thomas Carlyle

From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought, Ed. Oliver and Joan O’Donovan

The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe c. 1200 BC, by Robert Drews

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, by David W. Anthony

Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity, by Roger D. Woodard

The Peshawar Lancers, by S.M. Stirling

Revolt against the Modern World, by Julius Evola

History of the Venetian Republic, Vols. III and IV, by William Carew Hazlitt (1860)

The Technological Society, by Jacques Ellul

2016

History of the Venetian Republic, Vols. I and II, by William Carew Hazlitt (1860)

The English in the West Indies: Or, the Bow of Ulysses, by James Anthony Froude (1888)

The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, by T.R. Glover

Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction, Ed. Gardner Dozier

The Cousins’ Wars: Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of Anglo-America, by Kevin Phillips

Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe, by William Rosen

Mathematics in Western Culture, by Morris Kline

The Great Abuse of Musick, in Two Parts, by Arthur Bedford (1711)

The Irony of American History, by Reinhold Niebuhr

Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, by Plutarch, Trans. John Dryden

Capitalism and Progress: A Diagnosis of Western Society, by Bob Goudzwaard

The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece, by Victor Davis Hanson

2015

Shields of Brass or Shields of Gold: Reestablishing a Standard of Excellence for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, by O.S. Hawkins

The Good New Stuff: Adventure SF in the Grand Tradition, Ed. Gardner Dozois

Forbidden Planets, Ed. Marvin Kaye

The Sixth Omni Book of Science Fiction, Ed. Ellen Datlow

2041: 12 Stories about the Future, Ed. Jane Yellen

What If? 2: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, Ed. Robert Cowley

On Old Age (essay), by Cicero, Trans. E.S. Shuckburgh

The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF, Ed. Mike Ashley

A Meeting at Corvallis, by S.M. Stirling

The Protector’s War, by S.M. Stirling

Dies the Fire, by S.M. Stirling

Island in the Sea of Time, by S.M. Stirling

The Complete Works of Tacitus, Ed. Moses Hadad, Trans. A.J. Church and W.J. Brodribb

Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years, by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Romans Verse-by-Verse: A Classical Evangelical Commentary, by William R. Newell

Galactic Empires, Vols. I and II, Ed. Brian Aldiss

The Constitution of Liberty, by F.A. Hayek

Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power, by Andrew Nagorski

2014

On the Laws and On the Republic (reread), by Marcus Tullius Cicero, Trans. David Fott

Political Complexity: Nonlinear Models of Politics, Ed. Diana E. Richards

The Nazis’ March to Chaos: The Hitler Era through the Lens of Chaos-Complexity Theory, by Roger Beaumont

The Meaning of Quantum Theory, by Jim Baggott

Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Chaos and Order, by M. Mitchell Waldrop

Before the Golden Age: A Science Fiction Anthology of the 1930s, Ed. Isaac Asimov

Pro, by Gordon R. Dickson

The Carolingian Empire: The Age of Charlemagne, by Heinrich Fichtenau

The Anglo-Saxon Age: c. 400 – 1042, by D.J.V. Fisher

The Secular Squeeze: Reclaiming Christian Depth in a Shallow World, by John F. Alexander

The Foundation Trilogy: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

The Early History of Rome (Books I-V), Livy, Trans. Aubrey de Selincourt

The Twelve Caesars, Seutonius, Trans. Robert Graves

Campaigns of Alexander, Arrian, Trans. Aubrey de Selincourt

The Empire of Isher, by A.E. van Vogt

The Fall of the Roman Republic, Plutarch, Trans. Rex Warner

The Anabasis, Xenophon, Trans. Rex Warner

The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides, Trans. Rex Warner

The Persian Wars, Herodotus, Trans. George Rawlinson

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, by Bill Bryson

Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, by Nicholas Ostler

Ancient Iraq, by Georges Roux

2013

The Hittites and Their Contemporaries in Asia Minor, by J.G. Macqueen

Romans on the Euphrates: The Story of a Frontier, by Freya Stark

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, by Stephen Ambrose

The Guns of August, by Barbara W. Tuchman

Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, by Stephen Ambrose

Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos, by Isaac Asimov

The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson

Sweet Psalms for God’s Saints: 15 Messages from Favorite Psalms, by Dr. Tom Malone

Faster than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation, by Joao Magueijo

Triplanetary, by E.E. “Doc” Smith

Cities, by John Reader

The Aeneid, by Publius Vergilius Maro, Ed. Trans. Rolfe Humphries

Lectures to my Students, by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The Metamorphoses, by Publius Ovidius Naso, Ed. Trans. Rolfe Humphries

The Odes of Horace and the Centennial Hymn, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Ed. Trans. James Michie

A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Trusting God, Even When Life Hurts, by Jerry Bridges

The Celts: The People Who Came out of Darkness, by Gerhard Herm

Life in Roman Britain, by Anthony Birley

Romans and Aliens, by J.P.V.D. Balsdon

The Maker, by Wes Moore

The Pursuit of Holiness, by Jerry Bridges

On the Commonwealth, by Marcus Tullius Cicero, Ed. Trans. George Sabine and Stanley Smith

The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War, 1890-1914, by Barbara W. Tuchman

1776, by David McCullough

Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician, by Anthony Everitt

Against Calvinism, by Roger E. Olson

2012

From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present, by Jacques Barzun

Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies, by Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit

Greek Realities: Life and Thought in Ancient Greece, by Finley Hooper

Lester Roloff: Living by Faith, by Marie Brady Roloff

Tramp for the Lord, by Corrie ten Boom

The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom

The Making of the Middle Ages, by R.W. Southern

Western Europe in the Middle Ages, by Joseph Strayer

The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, by Bryan Ward-Perkins

The Age of Total War: 1860-1945, by Jeremy Black

Constitutional Development in the South Atlantic States: 1776-1860, by Fletcher M. Green

How the Scots Invented the Modern World, by Arthur Herman

Chaos: Making a New Science, by James Glieck

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, by Stephen E. Ambrose

Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration, by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

The Far Southwest 1846-1912: A Territorial History, by Howard Roberts Lamar

The Roman Near East: 31 BC – AD 337, by Fergus Millar

The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny, by Victor Davis Hanson

2011

Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages, by Frances and Joseph Gies

The Three Musketeers, by Alexandré Dumas

Evangelism in the Early Church, by Michael Green

China’s Imperial Past, by Charles O. Hucker

The Analects of Confucius, ed., trans. Simon Leys

God’s Smuggler, by Brother Andrew

What If? The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, Ed. Robert Cowley

Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, by Roland de Vaux

The House of God, by William C. Hawkins

Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel, 1300 – 1100 BC, by Ann E. Killibrew

Roman Britain, by I.A. Richmond

The God of Israel, by David L. Cooper

The Consolation of Philosophy, by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, trans. Richard H. Green

Training Your Children To Turn out Right: A Biblical Guide for Christian Parents, by David Sorenson

Rock – Making Musical Choices, by Richard Peck

Huns, Vandals and the Fall of the Roman Empire, by Thomas Hodgkin

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, by Peter Heather

At the Heart of Christian Worship: Liturgical Essays of Yves Congar, by Yves Congar, trans. Paul Philibert

Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West: 376-568, by Guy Halsall

The Messiah in the Old Testament, by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.

Kommando: German Special Forces in World War II, by James Lucas

The Etruscans, by Massimo Pallottino

The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme, by John Keegan

The Roman Way, by Edith Hamilton

2010

The Myth of Rome’s Fall, by Richard Mansfield Haywood

Rome, by Mikhail Rostovtseff

Ancient Rome, by Richard Mansfield Haywood

Gold, Glory, and the Gospel: The Adventurous Lives and Times of the Renaissance Explorers, by Louis B. Wright

Doniphan’s Epic March: The 1st Missouri Volunteers in the Mexican War, by Joseph C. Dawson

The English People on the Eve of Colonization, by Wallace Notestein

Understanding Pietism, by Dale W. Brown

Fatal Victories: History’s Most Tragic Military Triumphs and the High Cost of Victory, by William Weir

Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, by David Hackett Fischer

The Sword of the Republic: The United States Army on the Frontier, 1783-1846, by Francis Paul Prucha

A Planned Deception: The Staging of a New Age “Messiah”, by Constance E. Cumbey

Beyond Culture, by Edward T. Hall

The Decline of the West, by Oswald Spengler

Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game) , by Hermann Hesse

Coming of Age in the Milky Way, by Timothy Ferris

2009

Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam, by Robert Hoyland (reread)

Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World, by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook (reread)

Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State, by Yehuda D. Nevo and Judith Koren (reread)

Europe of the Dictators: 1919-1945, by Elizabeth Wiskemann

Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, by Walter Burkett

A Thirst for Wholeness: How to Gain Wisdom from the Book of James, by Jay Adams

The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution, by Barbara W. Tuchman

The Gnostic Religion, by Hans Jonas

The Stars Speak: Astronomy in the Bible, by Stewart Custer

Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction, by Luther H. Martin

Explorations: My Quest for Adventure and Discovery Under the Sea, by Robert D. Ballard

The Myth of the Eternal Return, by Mircea Eliade

The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, by Mircea Eliade

Old Goriot, by Honoré de Balzac

The Eighth Day, by Thornton Wilder

The Unity of Philosophical Experience, by Etienne Gilson

Victorian England: Portrait of an Age, by G.M. Young

Physics and its Fifth Dimension: Society, by Dietrich Schröer

A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, by Stephen Hawking

Cities of Salt, by Abdelrahman Munif