Columbia UniversityColumbia College Core Curriculum
From Columbia's transformative general education curriculum — the essential reads that turn students into "more versatile thinkers with richer lives." These books span humanities and global cultures, handpicked from courses designed to expand minds and discover hidden intellectual passions.
1. Politics and Society
Frameworks of state, liberty, and social order that shaped modern governance.
Politics
Foundational reflections on constitutions and civic life.
The Prince
The handbook of power and realpolitik.
On Liberty
Canonical defense of freedom of thought and expression.
Leviathan
Vision of the state as guarantor of peace.
Democracy in America
Classic study of democracy's strengths and tensions.
2. Foundations of Literature
Foundational works of Western literature that shape storytelling, virtue, and tragedy.
The Symposium
Dialogue on love, beauty, and philosophy's power.
Pride and Prejudice
Enduring novel of wit, class, and marriage.
The Iliad
The original epic of war, fate, and human rage.
Confessions
The first great Western autobiography of faith.
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri
Visionary journey through hell and the human soul.
The Tragedy of King Lear
Shakespeare's darkest tragedy of power and madness.
3. Philosophical Inquiry
Timeless explorations of truth, morality, and the examined life.
The Republic
Cornerstone of Western philosophy and political thought.
The Nicomachean Ethics
Classic work on virtue and the good life.
Meditations on First Philosophy
Landmark in modern rationalist philosophy.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Defining text of duty and universal ethics.
On the Genealogy of Morals & Ecce Homo
Radical critique of morality and its origins.
4. Structures of Economy
Works that define markets, wealth, and global structures of inequality.
5. Modern Critique
20th-century reflections on gender, race, colonialism, and power.
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud
Provocative analysis of repression and modern malaise.
The Souls of Black Folk
Seminal text on race and double consciousness.
The Wretched of the Earth
Landmark in postcolonial and liberation thought.
Discipline and Punish
Brilliant history of surveillance, prisons, and power.
The Second Sex
Groundbreaking feminist philosophy of women's condition.