From an email on the subject of the 7-book list

One of the things I had in mind when I made lists like that that culminated in that 7-book list was this: if a person was just dropped in the desert in some time in the past and only had seven book influences what would be the best seven? (And I had in mind also: influences to give that person enough to make him able to become an Alexander or Caesar of his time.) So I chose influences that are not 'surfacy' regarding knowledge but are more like physical monuments that go to essense. Also influences that are bibles in their own subject matter. Then I made the list balanced. The War [On War - von Clausewitz] and Wealth [Wealth of Nations - Smith] bibles give you the main worldly subjects. The Ouspensky [Fourth Way, Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution, In Search of the Miraculous] gives you philosophy and, really, theology and all esoteric matter all in one. The Thucydides is really the only pure bible of history. It is pretty hard to crack, so to speak, but it contains universal understanding of historical patterns and human nature and the nature of power and all that that history gives. The Plutarch [Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans] speaks for itself. Human architecture. The Homer [Iliad and Odyssey] and Bible [AV1611] speak for themselves. On the Christian blog I replaced Ouspensky with Calvin, for obvious reasons.