Western History Works - Daniel Woolf

I have been taking the long route in coming up with the western canonical text list - thus it is still by no means closed to being completed. Here is a shorter try - just look at things from the simplest sources individually on the topics of History, Literature, and Philosophy.

 

For History - a starter is a textbook I just finished reading: Daniel Woolf's A Global History of History. The text below are those works listed in the beginning of each chapter, only Western works prior to 1900 are listed below. The breaking into perids are my own after seeing the list

 

A) Near Eastern

~24th c. B.C.  Weidner Chronicle

~22nd c. B.C. Sumerian King List

10th to ~late 7th c. B.C. Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible)

8th c. B.C. Synchronistic History

704-681 B.C. Eponymous Chronicle

7th to 6th c. B.C. Neo-Babylonian Chronicle series

 

B) Classical

~420 B.C. Herodotus' Histories

mid-2nd c. B.C. Polybius' Histories

~90 A.D. Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, Jewish Wars, and Against Apion

~105-17 A.D. Tacitus' Annals and Histories

~160 - 240 Sextus Julius Africanus' Chronografiai

After 325 Eusebius' Chronicle completed

~330 Eusebius' Church History 

~391 Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae Libri XXXI ("Thirty-one Books of Deeds")

~417 Orosius' Seven Books of History against the Pagans

~551 Procopius of Caesarea's Secret History

early 6th c. Gildas' De Excidio Britanniae ("On the Ruin of Britain")

~619 Isidore of Seville's History of the Goths

 

C) Medieval

~731 Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum  ("Ecclesiastical History of the English People")

9th c. to ~1154 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

840? The Annales regni Francorum ("Royal Frankish Annals")

~1120 - ~1143 William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum anglorum ("Deeds of the English Kings") Gesta pontificum anglorum ("Deeds of the English Bishops") and Historia novella ("New History")

~1136 Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain")

1274-1461 Grandes Chroniques de France ("Great Chronicles of France")

~1305 - ~1309 Chronicle of the Crusade of St. Louis

~1369 - ~1400 Froissart's Chronicles of France, England and Nearby Countries is compiled in stages

 

D) Renaissance & Discovery

1439 Leonardo Bruni's Historiae Florentini populi libri xii is completed ("Twelve Books on the History of the Florentine People")

1440 Lorenzo Valla discredits the Donation of Constantine

1498 Philippe de Commynes completes his Memoirs

~1513 Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince is written

1532 Paolo Giovio's Commentary on Turkish Matters

1535 Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes' Historia general de las Indias ("General History of the Indies")

1552 Bartolome de Las Casas' Brevisima relacion de la destruccion de las Indias ("A Brief Relation of the Destructino of the Indies")

1559-74 Matthias Flacius Illyricus' Ecclesiastica historia or Magdeburg Centuries is published

1566 Jean Bodin's Methodus ("Method")

1579 The twelfth and final book of Sahagun's Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espana ("GEneral History of Things in New Spain") is completed

1586 Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza's History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China is published

1588 Cardinal Cesare Baronio's Annales Ecclesiastici ("Ecclesiastical Annals")

1590 Jose de Acosta's Historia natural y moral de las Indias ("Natural and Moral History of the Indies") is published

~1598 Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc's Cronica Mexicayotl

~1600-8 Alva Ixtlilxochitl's Summary Relation of Things that Have Happened in New Spain is written

1609 El Inca Garcilaso's Comentarios reales ("Royal Commentaries") is published

1615 Juan de Torquemada's Monarquia indiana ("The Indian Monarchy"); Guaman Poma finishes El primer nueva coronica y buen gobierno ("The First New Crhonicle and Good Government")

1617 El Inca Garcilaso's Historia general del Peru

1619 Paolo Sarpi's Istoria del Concillio Tridentino ("History of the Council of Trent") is printed in London under a pseudonym

 

E) Englightenment

1678 Richard Simon's Histoire critique du Vieux Testament ("Critical History of the Old Testament")

1681 Jacques-Benigne Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History; Jean Mabillion's De re diplomatical libri VI ("Six Books on Diplomatic")

1697 The first edition of Perre Bayle's Dictionnaire historeique et critique ("Historical and Critical Dictionary") is published

1702 Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana; or the Eccelsiastical History of New England is published

1723 Pietro Giannone's Civil History of the Kingdom of Naples is published

1724 Jean-Francois Lafitau's Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, compares aux moeurs de premiers temps ("The Manners of the Primitive Americans, Compared wtih the Manners of Earliest Times") is published

1725 Giambattista Vico's Scienza Nuova ("New Science") is published and is revised in 1735 and 1744

1751 Voltaire's Le siecle de Louis XIV ("The Age of Louis XIV") is published

1752 Bolingbroke's Letters on the Study and Use of History is published posthumously

1756-8 Joseph de Guignes' Histoire generale des Huns, des Turcs, des Mogols, et des autres peoples Tartares occidentaux ("General History of the Huns, Turks, Mongols and Other Western Tartar Peoples") is published in Paris

1764 The first volume of Thomas Hutchinson's History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay is published

1770 First edition of Guillaume Thomas Raynal's Histoire ... des ... deux Indes (" History ... of the ... East and West Indies") is published

1774 Johann Gottfried Herder's Also a Philosophy of History and Lord Kames's Sketches of the History of Man are published

1776-88 Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is published

1777 William Robertson's History of America is published

~1791 Mercy Otis Warren's History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination fo the American Revolution is completed but unpublished till 1805

1795 Condorcet's Esquisse or Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind is published posthumously

 

F) 19th Century / German Emminence

1811-32 Barthold Georg Niebuhr's three-volume Romische Geschichte ("Roman History") is published

1817 David Ramsay's three-volume History of the United States is published

1817 James Mill's The History of British India is published

1821-27 Carlos Maria de Bustamante's Cuadro historico de la revolucion de la America Mexicana ("A Historical Description of the Mexican Revolution") is published

1824 Leopold von Ranke's Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Volker von 1494 bis 1514 ("The Histories of the Latin and Germanic Peoples from 1494 to 1514") is published

1830-42 August Comte's Course in Positive Philosophy is published

1837 G.W.F. Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of World History is published posthumously

1852 Karl Marx's 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is published

1857 Monumenta Hungariae Historica ("Historical Records of Hungary") and England's "Rolls Series" are initiated

1857-61 Henry Thomas Buckle's two-volume History of Civilization in England is published

1858 Johann Gustav Droysen's Grundriss der Historik ("Outline of the Principles of History") is published

1859 The Historische Zeitschrift is founded

1859 Bartolome's Mitre's Historia de Belgrano y de la independence argentina ("A Histor of [Manuel] Belgrano and Argentinian Independence") is published

1860 Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is published

1864 Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges' La Cite antique ("The Ancient City") is published

1874 Freidrich Nietzsched's Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie fur das Leben ("On the Use and Abuse of History for Life") is published

1883 Wilhelm Dilthey's Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften ("Introduction to the Human Sciences") is published

1887 Ludwig Riess is appointed the first Professor of History in Tokyo Imperial University

1897 Charles Langlois and Charles Seignobos' Introduction aux etudes historiques ("Introduction to Historical Studies") is published and soon after translated into many languages

1897 (African) Samuel Johnson composes The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate

 

Not a short list ... and based on just a scan of the Greek / Roman names ... Thucydides and Livy have not been included!!!