Authors
The thinkers behind the canon—philosophers, emperors, and visionaries across civilizations.
Adam Smith
Scottish Enlightenment · Enlightenment
1723 – 1790
Antoine-Henri Jomini
Modern Europe · Napoleonic Era
1779 – 1869
Aristotle
Ancient Greece · Classical Antiquity
384 BCE – 322 BCE
Arthur Schopenhauer
19th-century Germany · 19th Century
1788 – 1860
Baltasar Gracián
Spanish Golden Age · Baroque
1601 – 1658
Baruch Spinoza
Early Modern Europe · Dutch Golden Age
1632 – 1677
Carl von Clausewitz
Modern Europe · Napoleonic Era
1780 – 1831
Charles Darwin
Victorian Britain · 19th Century
1809 – 1882
David Hume
Scottish Enlightenment · Enlightenment
1711 – 1776
Epictetus
Greco-Roman · Imperial Rome
55 – 135
Francis Bacon
Early Modern Europe · Scientific Revolution (Early Modern)
1561 – 1626
Frédéric Bastiat
19th-century France · 19th Century
1801 – 1850
Gustave Le Bon
Modern Europe · Late 19th Century
1841 – 1931
Henry George
19th-century America · Gilded Age
1839 – 1897
Herodotus
Ancient Greece · Classical Antiquity
484 BCE – 425 BCE
Hippocrates
Ancient Greece · Classical Antiquity
460 BCE – 370 BCE
Immanuel Kant
European Enlightenment · Enlightenment
1724 – 1804
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
European Enlightenment · Enlightenment
1712 – 1778
John Locke
Early Modern Europe · Early Modern / Enlightenment
1632 – 1704
John Stuart Mill
Modern Europe · 19th Century
1806 – 1873
Lucretius
Ancient Rome · Late Republic
99 BCE – 55 BCE
Marcus Aurelius
Ancient Rome · High Roman Empire
121 – 180
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Roman Republic · Late Roman Republic
106 BCE – 43 BCE
Montesquieu
European Enlightenment · Enlightenment
1689 – 1755
Niccolò Machiavelli
Renaissance Europe · Renaissance
1469 – 1527
Plato
Ancient Greece · Classical Antiquity
428 BCE – 348 BCE
Plutarch
Greco-Roman World · Early Roman Empire
46 – 120
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Modern America · 19th Century
1803 – 1882
René Descartes
Early Modern Europe · Early Modern / Scientific Revolution
1596 – 1650
Sun Tzu
Ancient China · Spring and Autumn Period
544 BCE – 496 BCE
Thomas Hobbes
Early Modern Europe · Early Modern / English Civil War
1588 – 1679
Thomas Paine
Age of Revolutions (Atlantic World) · Enlightenment / 18th Century
1737 – 1809
Xenophon
Ancient Greece · Classical Antiquity
430 BCE – 354 BCE
