1/16/2017 These are the books students at the top US colleges are required to read — Quartz

REQUIRED READING

These are the books students at

the top US colleges are required
to read
Thu-Huong Ha January 27, 2016

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1/16/2017 These are the books students at the top US colleges are required to read — Quartz

 Shh. (Flickr/Marissa Smith, CC BY 2.0)

The leaders of tomorrow will be well versed in dead philosophers, according to a

new database of college syllabi.

The Open Syllabus Project, a collection of over 1 million curricula from English-
language colleges and universities over the past 15 years, released its data on
Friday (Jan. 22). Plato, Hobbes, Machiavelli, and Aristotle overwhelmingly
dominate lists in the US, particularly at the top schools.

The required readings skew toward the humanities—science and engineering

classes tend to assign fewer titles—and not surprisingly, toward the Western canon.

In the US, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein is the most taught work of
ction, with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales a close second. In history titles, George
Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi’s textbook, America: A Narrative History, is No.
1, with Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi, a memoir about life as an
African-American woman in Jim Crow America, at No. 2. The Communist Manifesto
is the third most taught in history, and is the top title in sociology.

“It’s still a dirty dataset,” project director Joe Karaganis tells Quartz, referring to
the potential for errors from misspelled or non-uniform titles. In addition, the
team behind the project, based at Columbia’s American Assembly public policy
institute, has had to rely on what’s publicly available on college sites.

But with the database now open, Karaganis hopes this will change: As more
institutions and academics get involved, the team can start to ll in the gaps and
correct mistakes. He looks to triple the number of syllabi by the end of 2016.

See the texts taught at 10 of the top US colleges and how often they appeared over
the last 15 years.

10 top US colleges*

Rank Count Text Author

1 168 Republic Plato

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1/16/2017 These are the books students at the top US colleges are required to read — Quartz

Rank Count Text Author

2 163 Leviathan Hobbes,

Thomas

3 163 The Prince Machiavelli,

Niccolò

4 158 The Clash of Civilizations Huntington,

Samuel

5 145 The Elements of Style Strunk, William

6 122 Ethics Aristotle

7 119 The Structure of Scienti c Kuhn, Thomas

Revolutions

8 119 Democracy in America Tocqueville,

Alexis De

9 116 The Communist Manifesto Marx, Karl

10 113 The Politics Aristotle

Princeton

Rank Count Text Author

1 20 The Clash of Civilizations Huntington,

Samuel

2 19 Globalization and its Stiglitz, Joseph

Discontents

3 18 The Logic of Congressional Arnold, R.

Action Douglas

4 17 Public Finance Rosen, Harvey

5 15 Capitalism, Socialism, and Schumpeter,

Democracy Joseph Alois

6 15 The Peloponnesian War Thucydides

7 15 Diplomacy Kissinger,
Henry

8 14 The Protestant Ethic and the Weber, Max

Spirit of Capitalism

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1/16/2017 These are the books students at the top US colleges are required to read — Quartz

Rank Count Text Author

9 14 To End a War Holbrooke,

Richard

10 14 Ethnic Groups in Con ict Horowitz,

Donald

Harvard

Rank Count Text Author

1 60 Letter from the King, Jr., Martin

Birmingham Jail Luther

2 50 The Elements of Style Strunk, William

3 49 Leadership without Easy Heifetz, Ronald

Answers

4 45 The Clash of Civilizations Huntington,

Samuel

5 44 Thinking, Fast and Slow Kahneman, Daniel

6 43 The Prince Machiavelli,

Niccolò

7 43 A Primer for Policy Stokey, Edith

Analysis

8 43 A Theory of Justice Rawls, John

9 39 Principles of Corporate Brealey, Richard

Finance

10 39 Thank You for Arguing Heinrichs, Jay

Yale

Rank Count Text Author

1 12 Republic Plato

2 11 Quarterly Review Federal Reserve Bank

of Minneapolis

3 10 Invisible Man Ellison, Ralph

4 10 The Odyssey Homer

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1/16/2017 These are the books students at the top US colleges are required to read — Quartz

Rank Count Text Author

5 9 Let Us Now Praise Agee, James

Famous Men

6 9 Democracy in Tocqueville, Alexis De

America

7 9 Anthropology Boas, Franz

8 9 Zapata and the Womack, John

Mexican Revolution

9 8 The Anti-Politics Ferguson, James

Machine

10 8 The Iliad Homer

Columbia

Rank Count Text Author

1 41 The Clash of Civilizations Huntington,

Samuel

2 38 Republic Plato

3 37 On Liberty Mill, John Stuart

4 32 The Social Contract Rousseau, Jean-

Jacques

5 29 Leviathan Hobbes, Thomas

6 28 The Politics Aristotle

7 27 The Metaphysics of Kant, Immanuel

Morals

8 27 Wealth of Nations Smith, Adam

9 27 Calculus: Early Stewart, James

Transcendentals

10 26 Civilization and its Freud, Sigmund

Discontents

Stanford

Rank Count Text Author

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1/16/2017 These are the books students at the top US colleges are required to read — Quartz

1 21 Leviathan Hobbes,
Thomas

2 21 The Structure of Scienti c Kuhn, Thomas

Revolutions

3 17 Foundations of Statistical Manning,

Natural Language Processing Christopher

4 16 Code and other Laws of Lessig,

Cyberspace Lawrence

5 15 “Creative Writing” Stegner,

Wallace

6 15 Republic Plato

7 14 Robinson Crusoe Defoe, Daniel

8 14 Frankenstein Shelley, Mary

Wollstonecraft

9 14 Understanding Media McLuhan,

Marshall

10 13 Rethinking the Public Sphere Fraser, Nancy

University of Chicago

Rank Count Text Author

1 23 Ethics Aristotle

2 21 Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle

3 19 Statistics with Stata 3 Hamilton,

Lawrence

4 15 Of ce Hours Foster, Norm

5 15 The Prince Machiavelli,

Niccolò

6 14 The Discourses Machiavelli,

Niccolò

7 13 The Metaphysics of Morals Kant, Immanuel

8 13 Confessions Saint Augustine

9 13 Arti cial Intelligence Russell, Stuart

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1/16/2017 These are the books students at the top US colleges are required to read — Quartz

Rank Count Text Author

10 12 Two Treatises of Locke, John

Government

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Rank Count Text Author

1 37 Leviathan Hobbes, Thomas

2 35 The Communist Marx, Karl

Manifesto

3 33 Macroeconomics Blanchard, Olivier

4 29 The Prince Machiavelli, Niccolò

5 28 Lectures on Blanchard, Olivier

Macroeconomics

6 27 Capital Marx, Karl

7 26 The Elements of Style Strunk, William

8 25 Economics Krugman, Paul

9 25 Japanese, the Spoken Jorden, Eleanor Harz

Language, Part 1

10 25 Quarterly Review Federal Reserve Bank

of Minneapolis

Duke

Rank Count Text Author

1 27 Introduction to Stock, James

Econometrics

2 27 “The Problem of Social Coase, R. H.

Cost”

3 25 Wealth of Nations Smith, Adam

4 23 The Tragedy of the Hardin, Garrett

Commons James

5 21 Econometrics Hayashi, Fumio

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1/16/2017 These are the books students at the top US colleges are required to read — Quartz

Rank Count Text Author

6 20 Leadership without Easy Heifetz, Ronald

Answers

7 19 Analytical Politics Hinich, Melvin

8 18 Principles of Corporate Brealey, Richard

Finance

9 17 Macroeconomics Barro, Robert

10 16 Macroeconomic Theory Sargent, Thomas

University of Pennsylvania

Rank Count Text Author

1 27 Oedipus Sophocles

2 26 A Short Guide to Writing About Barnet,

Art Sylvan

3 26 Heart of Darkness Conrad,

Joseph

4 23 The Evolution of Cooperation Axelrod,

Robert

5 23 Republic Plato

6 21 Autobiography Franklin,
Benjamin

7 20 The Art and Architecture of the Harle, J. C.

Indian Subcontinent

8 19 Canterbury Tales Chaucer,

Geoffrey

9 19 Confessions Saint
Augustine

10 18 Persuasion Austen,
Jane

Brown

Rank Count Text Author

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1/16/2017 These are the books students at the top US colleges are required to read — Quartz

1 31 Learning and Teaching Sheridan,

Harold James

2 18 Cyborg Citizen Gray, Chris

Hables

3 16 The Technological Society Ellul, Jacques

4 16 The Learning Center Brown, Robert

5 16 The Communist Manifesto Marx, Karl

6 16 The Transparent Society Brin, David

7 14 A Social History of American Cowan, Ruth

Technology Schwartz

8 14 Illuminations Benjamin,
Walter

9 14 Simulations Baudrillard,
Jean

10 13 The Control Revolution Beniger, James

* This list is compiled from the US News’ current national universities rankings
cross-referenced with available syllabi on the Open Syllabus Project.

Image by Marissa Smith on Flickr, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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