Professor J. Rufus Fears presents his choices of some of the most essential writings in history. These are works that shaped the minds of great individuals and that offer an extraordinary gift of wisdom to those willing to receive it. Focus is on intellectual history and ethics, taking the underlying ideas of each great work and revealing how these ideas can be put to use in a moral and ethical life. The range in time is from the 3rd millennium B.C....

"For eons, the city of Troy--whose legendary fall was detailed in Homer's Iliad--was believed to be myth, until archaeologists in the nineteenth century uncovered its ancient walls buried beneath the sands. In the frozen tundra of Greenland, a group of modern-day researchers stumble on a shocking find: a medieval ship buried a half-mile below the ice. The ship's hold contains a collection of even older artifacts--tools of war--dating back to the Bronze...

From the publisher: In this strikingly original and groundbreaking book, Dr. Shay examines the psychological devastation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer's Iliad with Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Although the Iliad was written twenty-seven centuries ago it has much to teach about combat trauma, as do the more recent, compelling voices and experiences of Vietnam vets.

In 1193 B.C., Prince Paris, the son of the King of Troy falls in love with Helen, the wife of the king of Sparta, and convinces her to follow him away from her husband, Menelaus. The result is an epic war in which the Greeks sail to Troy and lay siege. Achilles, the greatest warrior in all the world, is called in to fight against Troy and give Greece the upper hand. Hector, the eldest son of Priam, King of Troy, and the greatest Trojan warrior, embodies...