Books of All Time

It's very unclear when the Avesta , the holy scriptures of the Zoroastrians, began to first be written. What is clear is that they offer us our first known glimpses of a revealed faith and of a radical religious reformer, namely Zarathustra, called Zoroaster by the ancient Greeks. This priest of the ancient Irano-Aryan faith turned away from the traditional practices of his people and began to...

In 336 BCE, a young man from northern Greece took over a nearly bankrupt kingdom. Within 13 years he had established dominance over the rest of Greece, claimed the crowns of Egypt and Persian, and built the second-largest empire in the world to that time. He also burned whole cities to the ground, left thousands of bodies crucifed along a beach in Lebanon, and may well have been responsible for th...

For our 50th episode, we return to Ancient Greece and to philosophy with The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Intended as a guide to the good life for ancient Athenian elites, the Ethics has some advice to offer us today about how to pursue a worthwhile existence. This episode also goes into Aristotle's background and the shocking fact that most of the works we still have of his are...

In this second part of our investigation into the Tao Te Ching, we cover some of the many, many, many shapes its teachings have been bent into over the last 2,500 years—from the inspiration for an alchemy-and-sex cult that accidentally invented gunpowder to the basis for the most popular science fiction film franchise in history. Join us as we discuss Chinese demon hunters, bad management advice,...

Ever seen or doodled a yin-yang symbol? Does the proverb "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" ring a bell? You've brushed up against the Tao Te Ching , one of the most influential works of Ancient Chinese literature that's also the foundational text of Taoism (pronounced "daoism"), China's major native religion. Traditionally ascribed to a scholar called Lao-Tzu, the Tao Te...

Our second episode on The Book of Job looks at three reactions to the work. William Blake's illustrations for The Book of Job (1780—1823), which were produced in several media for various patrons Franz Kafka's The Trial (1925), which has a similar air of oppression and unattainable justice Carl Jung's Answer to Job (1952), in which the famed psychologist puts God on the couch If you want to see Bl...

Why do good people suffer? That's one of the key questions animating The Book of Job, one of the Hebrew Bible's three books of wisdom literature. In this episode, we walk through the story of a man who is plunged into despair and loss thanks to a bet between God and ("the") Satan. Journey through the story and some of the interpretations of the work—including one by Benjamin Franklin—and hear whic...

In our second episode on the Mahabharata , the great Indian epic from c. 300 BCE, we dive into what is perhaps the most famous section of it: the 700 verses that make up the Bhagavad Gita. We discuss the main points of this foundational Hindu scripture, which recounts a discussion between the warrior Arjuna and his charioteer, Krishna on the eve of an apocalyptic battle. We also discuss debates ar...

Eight times longer than the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, the Mahabharata has a little of everything: philosophy, spirituality, myths, romances, geography, a heroic polycule, and one transgender warrior who knows how to follow up on a grudge. First written down around 300 BCE (but, like its brother epic, the Ramayana , much older than that), the Mahabharata is at its core a story about two sets...

In our second episode on the Ramayana, which began to be written down in Sanskrit c. 350 BCE, we dive deeper into the theme of dharma . We explore some of the many different meanings of this term and trace the development of the three oldest dharmic faiths: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. We also compare how Buddhist and Jain retellings of the Ramayana differ from the one revered by today's Hindu...

It's time for some good old-fashioned epic action with our first episode on the Ramayana , one of the great Sanskrit-language epics from India. Composed as a written work from about 350 BCE onward (but probably much earlier as an oral poem), the Ramayana tells of the trials and tribulations of Rama, Prince of Kosala and avatar of the god Vishnu. It has everything from romance and battle to deep sp...

We come to the end of our three-episode exploration of Plato’s Republic, the seminal work of political philosophy composed mostly around 380 BCE . This episode covers pre-Socratic philosophy, the life of Socrates, and a really regrettable period of Plato's life when he tried to go into business as a political consultant and wound up stuck in the middle of what almost became a civil war. Don't leav...

In this episode, we continue our three-part, supersized exploration of Plato's Republic. Having defined morality and the ideal society in the first half of the book, we now move on to the pure philosophy part, which features Plato's theory of forms, his ideas about what constitutes true knowledge, and, of course, a ton of allegories—including the famous Allegory of the Cave. Listen now and know th...

It's philosophy time, friends. Join us for the first of three episodes about the ancient Greek philosopher Plato's book The Republic , the most influential work of philosophical literature ever written by a single author. It's the record of a long conversation Socrates has with some friends, in which they pick over two questions: what is morality? and does morality really have any intrinsic benefi...

Aaaaaand we're back. Aristophanes, the comedian of ancient Athens, has a reputation for getting into hot water for his jibes about the demagogue Cleon (which landed him in hot water, legally) and his portrayal the philosopher Socrates (which, according to Plato, fatally damaged Socrates' image for a generation). But is this reputation deserved? This episode looks at the evidence for how much Arist...

Produced in 405 BCE, just months before Athens' disastrous loss of the Peloponnesian War, Aristophanes' Frogs is a play about how important — and ridiculous — great art can be. Featuring a poetic battle royale between the ghosts of Aeschylus and Euripides, the play blends highbrow literary satire, bawdy sight gags, and more than a little bit of reactionary xenophobia. So nothing's changed there, t...

Euripides's plays, including The Trojan Women , include a great many complex and sympathetic female characters. In this episode, we use Euripides's interest in women as a jumping-off point to look at the real lives of women in Classical Athens during the 5th century BCE, when Euripides would have been alive and writing. Or at least, we try to. Join us on a slightly frustrating journey through the...

Our Greek Theatre summer continues with the last of the great tragedians, Euripides (c. 480–406 BCE). While less successful than Aeschylus and Sophocles when it came to winning prizes at the Athenian Dionysia, Euripides was more popular in his day—according to the historian Thucydides, Athenian prisoners of war were able to win favors, and sometimes freedom, by reciting his lines to their captors....

Since 1900 or so, anyone trying to engage with Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex has had Sigmund Freud breathing over their shoulders. This episode looks at how Freud, inspired by (and slightly obsessed with) Sophocles' play, concocted a theory that began as a stage of child development but soon expanded to become a universal explanation for all of culture, religion, and art. CONTENT NOTE: This episode...

Sophocles (496 - 406 BCE) is considered the greatest of the great tragedians of Athens. In this episode, we take a look at his charmed life and at the play which, more than any other, has come to define his legacy: Oedipus Rex, which was probably staged in the 430s or 420s . It's basically a cold-case investigation that goes horribly, horribly wrong for its investigator. Want to read a transcript...

In our second episode on Sun-Tzu's The Art of War , we dive into the cultural movement that introduced it to the west: the first Jesuit mission to China. From 1552 until 1773, the missionary priests of the Society of Jesus were the primary channel for communication between China and Europe. While their main goal was the conversion of souls, they wound up sharing science, technology, and literature...

"Know your enemy, know yourself, and victory is never in doubt, not in a hundred battles." So wrote the legendary Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu sometime in the 6th or possibly 5th or possibly 4th century BCE. While Sun Tzu's existence and the exact date of the composition of the text associated with his name are uncertain, the work has influenced commanders, diplomats, C-suite executives, an...

If Herodotus is the father of history, who are some of his children? This episode looks into it. Starting with a brief look at Herodotus's reputation down the ages, we examine the works of three ancient historians whose works can be said to derive from our pal Herodotus. They include: Thucydides of Athens (c. 460-404 BCE), who purged his History of the Peloponnesian War of all that messy stuff abo...

Last week we summarized books 1-5 of Herodotus's Histories. This week we cover books 6-9, which is heaving with military history. Marathon! Thermopylae! Salamis! While not as entertaining as the initial parts of the Histories , there are some iconic scenes and characters to meet here, from surprisingly sensitive Xerxes to the brave, doomed Spartan King Leonidas. Listen now! Want to read a transcri...

Year two begins with a two-part summary episode! Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 484 - 425 BCE) wrote his epic history of the Greco-Persian wars and was an instant sensation. The Histories ("history" in those days meaning an inquiry or research) cover the rise of the Persians, the customs of all the peoples with whom they fought, architecture, geography, animals, religious practices, and smutty cou...