Classes

Since I moved to California in Sept 2000, I've been taking continuing studies classes at Stanford in the evening. A few titles are:

Homer's Aegean: Mycenaeans, Minoans, and the Epic Tradition (CRD I)

Classical Greece: Harmony, Balance and Proportion (II)

Augustan Rome: Imperial Will and Divine Destiny (III)

Chin and Han China: Gentlemen Scholars and the Literati Tradition (IV)

Byzantine Millenium: Celestial Visions and Secular Icons (V)

Maya: Worlds Above and Worlds Below (VI)

The Barbarian West, Heroes and Kings (Intro to the early Middle Ages) (VII)

The Romanesque Revival: Conquest, Crusade and Pilgrimage (VIII)

The World of Ancient Greek and Roman Poetry (CLA 100)

Gothic France: Troubadour Song and Chivalric Quest (IX)

Medieval Japan: Courts, Cloisters, and the Samurai Tradition (X)

Imperialism and Democracy in Ancient Athens (CLA 27)

Trecento Tuscany: Divine Inspirations and Secular Horizons (XI)

Medieval Islam in the West: The Legacy of the Umayyad Caliphate (XII)

Latin I (Lat 01) [Fall 2003]

Goethe (Lit 134) [Fall 2003]

The Legacy of Babylon (CRD XIII) [Fall 2004]

Egypt in the New Kingdom (XIV) [Fall 2004]

The Heritage of Gupta India (XV) [Winter 2005]

The Golden Age of Persia (XVI) [Winter 2005]

Celtic Realms (XVII) [Spring 2005]

The Viking Age (XVIII) [Spring 2005]

Some books I've read since 2001

Naipaul: A Bend in the River

Jung Chan: Wild Swans

Tournament of Shadows (The Great Game and the race for Empire in Central Asia)

Byron: The Road to Oxiana

Mann: The Magic Mountain, and Professor Unrat

Chalmers Johnson: Blowback

Keegan: The First World War

Stone: Damascus Gate

Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass

Tennyson: Collected Poems

Sun Tzu: Art of War

Fromkin: A Peace to End all Peace

Schopenhauer: Essays and Aphorisms

Biography of Saint Francis of Assisi

Thermopylae: The Battle for the West

Plato: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus

Aristophanes: Acharnians, Knights, Wasps, Clouds, Peace, Thesmophoriazusae, Ecclesiazusae, Plutus

Xenophon: Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium, Apologia, Anabasis, Hellenica

Dante: Divine Comedy and Nuovo Vita

Ross King: Brunelleschi's Dome "How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture"

The Greek World After Alexander: 323-30 BC

Arabic Short Stories

Testimony, The Memoirs of Dimitry Shostakovich

Year 2003: -----------------------------------------

Andre Gide: The Counterfeiters

Pushkin: The Captain's Daughter and other stories

Hemmingway: Farewell to Arms

Oscar Wilde: The Critic as Artist, Salome, De Profundis

Fitzgerald: This Side of Paradise

Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby

Keegan: The Book of War

Chechnya, Tombstone of Russian Power

Keegan: A History of Warfare

Adrian House: Saint Francis of Assisi: A Life

The Poem of El Cid

Dersu the Trapper: V.K. Arseniev

In Search of Zarathustra: Paul Kriwaczek

Talleyrand: bio by Duff Cooper

A Tale of Two Cities: Charles Dickens

Wilhelm Meister - The Apprenticeship: W. Goethe

The Dubliners: James Joyce

The Moor's Last Sigh: Salman Rushdie

The Name of the Rose: Umberto Eco

Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand

Durant: The Reformation

The Tsar's Last Armada - The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima: Constantine Pleshakov

Facing the Congo, A Modern-Day Journey into the Heart of Darkness: Jeffrey Tayler

Year 2004: -----------------------------------------

Homage to Catalonia: George Orwell

France and the Algerian War 1954-62 Strategy, Operations, and Diplomacy: Alexander and Keiger

Melville: Moby Dick

Walden: Henry David Thoreau

Novikov: Black Holes and the Universe

A Clergymans Daughter: George Orwell

Napolean: Felix Markham

The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient: Henri Frankfort

The Epic of Gilgamesh: translated by Andrew George (Penguin)

Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia: N.K. Sandars (Penguin)

The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt: W. Stevenson Smith

The Literature of Ancient Egypt: Simpson,Ritner,Tobin,Wente

Nausea: Jean-Paul Satre

The Battle That Stopped Rome: Peter S. Wells

The Scarlet Letter: Nathaniel Hawthorn

Scotland and its Whiskies: Michael Jackson

Year 2005: -----------------------------------------

The Bhagavad Gita: tranlated by Juan Mascaro, Penguin

Hindu Art and Architecture: George Mitchell

The Ramayana: translated by Vanamali

A Short history of the Korean War: James L. Stokesbury

Utopia: Thomas Moore, Wordsworth Classics

Conference of the Birds: Attar

The Crazed: Ha Jin

The Tain: translated by Thomas Kinsella, Oxford Univ Press

The Mabinogion: translated by Jeffrey Gantz, Penguin

The Volsung Saga, translated by Jesse L. Byock, Penguin

The Saga of Hrolf Kraki, translated by Jesse L. Byock, Penguin

Hrafnkel's Saga and other stories: translated by Hermann Palsson, Penguin

Snorri Sturluson, King Harald's Saga (Harald Hardradi of Norway): translated by Magnus Magnusson and Herman Palsson, Penguin

The Last Valley, Dien Bien Phu and the French defeat in Vietnam, by Martin Windrow, DaCapo.

The Nibelungenlied, translated by A.T. Hatto, Penguin

Sympathy for the Devil: Neutral Europe and Nazi Germany in WWII, C.Leitz, NYU Press

The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli, Penguin Books (Great Ideas)

At the Edge of Space: The X-15 flight program, Milton O. Thompson, Smithsonian

Christians and The Fall of Rome, Edward Gibbon, Penguin Books (Great Ideas)

Year 2006: -----------------------------------------

On Art and Life, John Ruskin, Penguin Books (Great Ideas)

On the Shortness of Life, Seneca, Penguin Books (Great Ideas)

The Freedom, Christian Parenti, The New Press

De Officiis, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Loeb Classical Library/Harvard Univ Press

The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain 660-1649, N.A.M. Rodger, Norton

The Vikings, Else Roesdahl, Penguin History

The Gallic War, Julius Caesar, Loeb Classical Library/Harvard Univ Press

Post Office, Charles Bukowski, Ecco Press

The Revolution of Peter the Great, James Cracraft, Harvard Univ Press

The Cold War: A New History, John Lewis Gaddis, Penguin Press

Cobra II, Michael R. Gordon & Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, Pantheon

Ancient Iraq 3rd ed, Georges Roux, Penguin: ISBN 0-14-012523-X

Salammbo, Flaubert, Penguin, 0-140-44328-2

Belshazzar, Davis, The Macmillan Co, (1926)

Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, Lee Smolin, Basic Books, 0-465-07836-2

A History of the Swedish People I, Moberg, Pantheon, 0-394-48192-5

A History of the Swedish People II, Moberg, Pantheon, 0-88029-313-6

Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree: Islam Quintet I, Tariq Ali, Verso, 0-86091-676-6

The Book of Saladin: Islam Quintet II, Tariq Ali, Verso, 1-85984-231-3

The White Castle, Orhan Pamuk, Vintage, 0-375-70161-3

The War of the World, Niall Ferguson, Penguin, 1-59420-100-5

Hannibal, Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Da Capo Press, 978-0306813627

Year 2007: -----------------------------------------

The Clash: US-Japanese Relations Throughout History, Walter LaFeber, Norton, ISBN 0-393-31837-0

The Stone Woman: Islam Quintet III, Tariq Ali, Verso, 1859843646

A History of Sweden, Herman Lindqvist, Norstedts, 978-91-1-301455-5

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, Bart D. Ehrman, Harper-Collins, 978-0-621413-9

A Sultan in Palermo: Islam Quintet IV, Tariq Ali, Verso, 1844670252

Sacred Games, Vikram Chandra, Harper-Collins, 0061130354

A House for Mr. Biswas, V.S. Naipaul, Picador, 0330487191

The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, Antony Beevor, 2006 Edition, Penguin, 014303765X

The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth, The Overlook Press (Pub 1932), 1-58567-326-9

The Golden Ass (The Transformation of Lucius), Apuleius (Transl: Robert Graves), Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1951

The Basque History of the World, Mark Kurlansky, Penguin 1999, 0-8027-1349-1

Independent People, Halldor Laxness, Vintage International, 1946, 0-679-76792-4

Women, Charles Bukowski, Ecco, 1978, 0-87685-390-4

Popular Music, Mikael Niemi, Harper Perennial, 2000, 0-00-714551-9

The End of America, Naomi Wolf, 2007

Persian Fire: The First World Empire and The Battle for The West, Tom Holland

The Great Lakes of Africa: Two Thousand Years, Jean Pierre Chretien

Over the Edge of the World Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe, Laurence Bergreen

Year 2008: -----------------------------------------

A History of Sweden, Lars O Lagerqvist, 2002, 91-520-0744-8

Russia and the Russians A History, Geoffrey A Hosking

Alexander A History of the Origin and Growth of the Art of War from the Earliest Times to the Battle of Ipsus, 301 Bc, With a Detailed Account of the campaigns, Theodore Ayrault Dodge

1066 The Year of the Three Battles Frank McLynn

A Natural History of the Bible, Daniel Hillel

Castles of Steel, Robert K. Massie, 2003, 0-345-40878-0

The Archimedes Codex, Reviel Netz and William Noel, 2007, 0-306-81580-X

The Kingdom of the Hittites, Trevor Bryce, 1998, 0-199-28132-7

The Marsh Arabs, Wilfred Thesiger, 1964, 0141442085

The Mask of Command, John Keegan, 1988, 0-140-11406-8

Cosmology and Controversy, Helge Kragh, 1996, 0-961-00546-X

The First Three Minutes, Steven Weinberg, 1977, 0-233-96906-3

Ravelstein, Saul Bellow, 2001, 9875662712

The Great American Novel, William Carlos Williams, 2003, 1931243522

Breakfast at Tiffany's with House of Flowers, Truman Capote, 1958

American Pastoral, Philip Roth, 1998, 0375701427

Are we Rome?, Cullen Murphy, 2008, 0547052103

Year 2009: -----------------------------------------

Assyrian Sculpture (2nd Ed), Julian Reade, 1999, 0674050177

Rome and the Barbarians, The Great Courses - Ancient and Medieval History

Goesta Berling, Selma Lagerlof, 1924, 1572160330

The Elgin Marbles, B.F. Cook

Christina, Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric, Veronica Buckley

Rome the Greek World and the East Vol 1: The Roman Revolution and the Augustan Revolution, Fergus Millar

Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Immanuel Kant

The Very First Light, John Mather, 2008, 978-0-465-00529-1

The Man Who Loved China, Simon Winchester, 2008, 978-0-06-088459-8

The Georgian Star: How William and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Cosmos

The Day We Found the Universe, Marcia Bartusiak, 2008

The Day Without Yesterday: Lemaitre, Einstein and the Birth of Modern Cosmology, John Farrell

The book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus, Owen Gingerich

The Wisdom of History, J. Rufus Fears

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008, 978-1594201974

Troublesome Young Men, Lynne Olson, 2007, 0-374-17954-9

Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler, 1941, 0-02-565200-1

Freakonmics, Leavitt and Dubner, 2005, 0-06-1234001

Genesis of the Big Bang, Alpher and Herman, 2001, 0-19-511182-6

Discovering the Expanding Universe, Nussbaumer and Bieri, 2009, 978-0-521-51484-2

A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40, Trotter, 1991, 978-1-56512-249-9