/lit/ - Literature

In short, we have to do three things:
>Relate how we understand ourselves as subjects of industrialized capitalism to classical bourgeois political theory
>Relate how the classical bourgeois political theorists related themselves to medieval political theory
>And then relate ourselves to both, since we are still defined through bourgeois ideology, in spite the fact that we live in the aftermath of the bourgeois revolutions. AND the medieval world is completely lost to us, in spite the fact that the bourgeois revolutions, and subsequent ideology of our time were defined through its liquidation

I recommend, as a start:
>Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
NOT for the demagoguery, but for how it points to the crisis of civilization, as a way of orienting how we understand 'barbarism'; the inheritance of the premodern into the modern
>What is the Third Estate? - the Abbé Sieyès
>Liberty of the Moderns as Opposed to the Ancients - Benjamin Constant
Both the Ancien Régime and the Republic of Virtue were consciously modelled after classical Greek philosophy, but were glaring anachronisms in contrast to existing conditions of the time. Constant and Sieyès are incredibly valuable at laying bare the relationship between the modern and the medieval through the inheritance of antiquity.
>Second Treatise on Government - Locke
>Discourse on Inequality; and the Social Contract - Rousseau
The absolute fundamentals of political theory. Read Locke and Rousseau, then reread them, and then prostrate yourself to them, then cry to yourself like Kant did that you will never be as smart as them.
>the Republic, the Statesman, the Laws - Plato
>the Nicomachean Ethics, the Politics - Aristotle
>Prince; Discourses on Livy - Machiavelli
>Spirit of the Laws - Montesquieu
Machiavelli fits the gap between ancient and modern political philosophy.
The Discourses are essential at grasping the development of modern republicanism in the prevalent conditions of feudalism. I also don't think Montesquieu can be understood properly without reference to Machiavelli, Aristotle, and Plato; but also can't be fully appreciated without how Locke and Rousseau lay bare the dawning of bourgeois freedom.
(I didn't include Hobbes and Hume, in spite of their importance, because they require a background on natural philosophy that can muddy the waters if the historical political background doesn't contextualize the ideas. Same goes for understanding the political content of Plato and Aristotle's physics and metaphysics.)