A friend of mine inquired about a reading list. I compiled this about three years ago, and I am sure one can improve the list; nonetheless, for anyone interested, here it is: Eclectic and Interdisciplinary Reading List Antiquity The Holy Bible The Epic of Gilgamesh Beowulf The Heart of Hebrew History , Hester The Sayings of Confucius Bhagva Gita The Art of War, Sun Tzu The Koran The Arabs in History , Barnard Lewis The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror , Lewis Greco-Roman The Aeneid , Virgil The Iliad , Homer The Odyssey , Homer Oedipus Rex , Sophocles Nichomachean Ethics , Aristotle Physics , Aristotle Politics , Aristotle Poetics , Aristotle