Essays and Treatises: Twenty-Two Arguments

This shelf is the site’s argument shelf: twenty-two titles where the point is a position rather than a plot, from Sun Tzu’s thirteen chapters to Mill’s Utilitarianism and the essays of Emerson and James.

It is not the same as philosophy, though it overlaps: a treatise argues a case and a dialogue dramatises one, and the essays here include the personal essay, the political pamphlet and the scientific paper — Montaigne is on it, and so is The Prince.

Several entries are excerpts rather than whole books — the Emerson volume gathers essays from two series — and the counts follow what the edition contains, not what the author wrote.

Every essay and treatise on this shelf

Twenty-two titles, oldest first, from the Art of War to the 1900s.

YearTitleAuthorFormWordsReading time
c. 500 BCThe Art of WarSun TzuTreatise54,8413 h
c. 375 BCThe RepublicPlatoTreatise212,44612 h
c. 340 BCThe Nicomachean EthicsAristotleTreatise116,4526 h
125The EnchiridionEpictetusTreatise14,1191 h
1580The Essays of Michel de MontaigneMichel de MontaigneEssays517,00029 h
1637Discourse on the MethodRené DescartesTreatise26,1001 h
1677EthicsBenedictus de SpinozaTreatise91,0005 h
1729A Modest ProposalJonathan SwiftPamphlet3,4671 h
1739A Treatise of Human NatureDavid HumeTreatise225,20013 h
1748An Enquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingDavid HumeTreatise48,0003 h
1776Common SenseThomas PainePamphlet22,1271 h
1781The Critique of Pure ReasonImmanuel KantTreatise212,00012 h
1788The Federalist PapersAlexander HamiltonEssays190,00011 h
1832On WarCarl von ClausewitzTreatise296,70016 h
1841Essays: First and Second SeriesRalph Waldo EmersonEssays133,0007 h
1848The Communist ManifestoKarl MarxPamphlet14,0001 h
1863UtilitarianismJohn Stuart MillTreatise30,6002 h
1887The Genealogy of MoralsFriedrich NietzscheTreatise52,0003 h
1899The Theory of the Leisure ClassThorstein VeblenTreatise106,0006 h
1903The Souls of Black FolkW. E. B. Du BoisEssays69,0004 h
1912The Problems of PhilosophyBertrand RussellTreatise45,9003 h
1916Democracy and EducationJohn DeweyTreatise135,0008 h

How this list was made

Inclusion follows the form recorded on the page: Essays, Treatise or Pamphlet. Dialogues, which are dramatised arguments, sit on the philosophy shelf.

Word counts are for these English texts, and the range is wide: the Art of War is about 7,000 words; Montaigne’s Essays over 400,000.

Most of this shelf is argument rather than story: fifteen treatises, four collections of essays and three pamphlets, by twenty-one authors. The Essays of Michel de Montaigne is the outlier at 517,000 words and 29 hours; the shortest, A Modest Proposal, runs 3,467 words and about an hour, which makes the pamphlets the cheapest way to test whether an argument from another century still holds.

Questions readers ask

What is the difference between an essay and a treatise?
Length and ambition, mostly. A treatise sets out to be complete; an essay admits it is an attempt. Montaigne called his essays attempts and meant it.
Where should I start?
The Art of War or the Enchiridion, both under 20,000 words. The Prince is the next step, then Mill for a modern argument.
Are these readable without background?
Mostly. The older treatises assume classical references; the book pages gloss the names that matter and the notes say which edition is being followed.

Part of all themed reading lists. Nearby shelves: Russian Classics · French Classics · American Classics · authors A–Z · word counts and reading times.