A Student’s Guide to American Political Thought, by George W. Carey, ISI Books, 2004.

Who are the most influential thinkers, and which are the most important concepts, events, and documents in the study of the American political tradition? How ought we regard the beliefs and motivations of the founders, the debate over the ratification of the Constitution, the historical circumstances of the Declaration of Independence, the rise of the modern presidency, and the advent of judicial supremacy? These are a few of the fascinating questions canvassed by George W. Carey in A Student’s Guide to American Political Thought. Carey’s primer instructs students on the fundamental matters of American political theory while telling them where to turn to obtain a better grasp on the ideas that have shaped the American political heritage.

Dr. Carey is Professor of Government at Georgetown University. He is the author and editor of several works including In Defense of the Constitution and Freedom and Virtue. Dr. Carey is also editor of The Political Science Reviewer, an annual review of leading works in political science and related disciplines. In 2003, he was awarded the ISI Regnery Award for Distinguished Institutional Service.

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A Student’s Guide to U.S. History, by Wilfred M. McClay, ISI Books, 2000.

No nation in modern history has had a more powerful sense of its own distinctiveness than the United States. Yet few Americans understand the immensely varied sources of that sense and the fascinating debates that have always swirled around our attempts to define “American” with greater precision. All too many have come to regard the study of their national history as tedious, just as they fail to embrace the past as something in which they must be consciously grounded. In this introduction to the study of U.S. history, Wilfred M. McClay invites us to experience the perennial freshness and vitality of this great subject as he explores some of the enduring commitments and persistent tensions that have made America what it is.

Wilfred M. McClay holds the SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in the Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is the author of The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, which received the prestigious Merle Curti Award from the Organization of American Historians. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Academy of Education, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and was recognized as one of the nation’s outstanding educators in the Templeton Foundation Honor Rolls.

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A Student’s Guide to the Study of History, by John Lukacs, ISI Books, 2000.

To study history is to learn about oneself. And to fail to grasp the importance of the past—to remain ignorant of the deeds and writings of previous generations—is to bind oneself by the passions and prejudices of the age into which one is born. John Lukacs, one of today’s most widely published historians, explains what the study of history entails, how it has been approached over the centuries, and why it should be undertaken by today’s students. This study guide is an invitation to become a master of the historian’s craft.

John Lukacs taught history at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia until his recent retirement. He held visiting professorships at many universities, including Columbia, Tufts, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Pennsylvania. A prolific author, he has written more than twenty books, including: Five Days in London, May 1940; A Thread of Years; The Hitler of History; and The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of the Modern Age, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of many academic honors and awards.

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A Student’s Guide to Classics, by Bruce S. Thornton, ISI Books, 2003.

Bruce Thornton’s crisp and informative A Student’s Guide to Classics provides readers with an overview of each of the major poets, dramatists, philosophers, and historians of ancient Greece and Rome. Including short bios of major figures and a list of suggested readings, Thornton’s study guide is unparalleled as a brief introduction to the literature of the classical world.

Bruce S. Thornton’s books include Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality, Greek Ways: How the Greeks Created Western Civilization, and Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age. He is Professor of Classics and Humanities in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at California State University, Fresno.

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A Student’s Guide to Economics, by Paul Heyne, ISI Books, 2000.

What is economics and what can you expect to learn from studying it? In this study guide, Paul Heyne, for many years one of America’s most respected free-market economists, asks this question as his starting point. The story of the progress of economic thought—as embodied in the methods and theories of Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich von Hayek, James Buchanan, and other influential scholars—provides Heyne with the material for an effective demonstration of the power and promise of the economic way of thinking.

Paul Heyne (1931-2000) was Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Washington, where he had worked since 1976. Revered as an outstanding teacher, in his writing he specialized in ethical criticisms of economic systems and the history of economic thought. His best-known work is The Economic Way of Thinking, an important and popular introductory economics textbook now in its ninth edition.

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A Student’s Guide to Literature, by R. V. Young, ISI Books, 2000.

This study guide takes up the following questions: In a time of mass culture and pulp fiction, can great literature still be discerned, much less defended? Why is literature so compelling? What should we read? Literary scholar R. V. Young addresses these timely issues in this guide to Western literature and poetry. He demonstrates that literature liberates the mind from cultural and temporal provincialism by expanding our intellectual and emotional horizons. Learn how great fiction and poetry are integral to a liberal education, and visit the classic works of literature again — or for the first time.

R. V. Young is Professor and Director of Graduate Programs in the Department of English at North Carolina State University. He is the author of At War with the Word: Literary Theory and Liberal Education (ISI Books) and co-founder and joint editor of the John Donne Journal. His other books are Richard Crashaw and the Spanish Golden Age, a bilingual edition of Justus Lipsius’s Principles of Letter-Writing (with M. Thomas Hester), and Doctrine and Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Literature.

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A Student’s Guide to Philosophy, by Ralph M. McInerny, ISI Books, 1999.

This study guide examines the following questions: Who is a philosopher? Can philosophical thought be avoided? What have philosophers written over the ages? And why should we care? In this critical essay, these and other questions are posed and answered by one of America’s leading philosophers, Ralph M. McInerny of the University of Notre Dame. Schools of thought are examined with humor and verve, and the principal works of philosophers and scholars are recommended.

Ralph M. McInerny is Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies and Director of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame. A prolific writer, he is the author of many scholarly books, including The Logic of Analogy, Aquinas on Human Action, and The Question of Christian Ethics. His internationally famous novels, the Father Dowling Mysteries, have been serialized for television.

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