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/lit/ - Literature

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8089861 No.8089861 [Reply] [Original]

What are the essential books to understand what is the western culture and what make it unique from other cultures.

Also, what books deal with it's current decline?

And what books deal with projections over what will happen this century.

>> No.8089869

>>8089861
>What are the essential books to understand what is the western culture and what make it unique from other cultures.

The Greeks and the Bible and a bunch of history books

>> No.8089886

>>8089861
We're going going back back to /pol/ /pol/

>> No.8089895

Fundamentals:

- Greek philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle
- History and politics of Rome
- Decline and fall by Gibbon
- Reconquest of Spain & conquest of America
- Essential works on liberalism and democracy
- Marx
- The Bible
- Some Nietzsche
- Existentialism
- Mein Kampf plus some history on WWII and the Holocaust
- Simone de Beaouvoir

These are some of the themes and works that have shaped Europe and the West as we know it today.

For its "decadence" (I don't think the West is decadent yet), read perhaps on WWII, Nazism, fascism, falangism, gulags and all other things related to our lowest point ever. I'd say the West still has a lot to say, especially when it comes to individualism and freedom.

>> No.8091182
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8091182

>>8089861
The Ascent of Man - both a book and an excellent BBC documentary from the 70s. Bronowsky was a STEM and Humanities guy at the same time, a very rare occurrence. He was like Sagan for adults.