Compendium Update

I have been working on a compendium since 2011 of the main ideas of the Western Tradition. I wrote a post about it back then, and then an update in 2013, and a few snippets in 2014. Much has changed since then, and, pleasingly, I am getting relatively close to finishing. Each selection for the compendium is, at maximum, 20 pages.

The list of 100 authors is as follows:

Pre-Renaissance (1450), 25: Bible, Homer, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Euripides, Euclid, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Lucretius, Cicero, Virgil, Seneca, Plutarch, Tacitus, Augustine, Benedict, Beowulf, Comnena, Aquinas, Gawain, Chaucer, Dante, Pizan

Renaissance (1450) – Enlightenment (1785) 25: Da Vinci, Luther, Castiglione, Machiavelli, Copernicus, Las Casas, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Viete, Cervantes, Bacon, Harvey, Galileo, Donne, Descartes, Hobbes, Rochefoucauld, Pascal, Newton, Ines de la Cruz, Swift, Rousseau, Smith, Hume, Kant 

American to Industrial Revolution (1785 –1900) 25: Hamilton Jay and Madison (HJM), Gibbon, Wollstonecraft, Wordsworth, Hegel, Dalton, Austen, Oersted, Mackay, Emerson, Kierkegaard, Marx, Thoreau, Lincoln, Darwin, Mill, Carroll, Mendel, Tolstoy, Pasteur, Rimbaud, Dostoevsky, Twain, Nietzsche, Herzl 

20th Century, 25: Du Bois, Rutherford, Joyce, Kafka, Freud, Einstein, Piaget, Heidegger, Heisenberg, Keynes, Ernst, Benjamin, Hubble, Hardy, Borges, Schrodinger, Orwell, de Beauvoir, Turing, Camus, Beckett, Wittgenstein, Ginsburg, Carson, Sontag 

I am now down to the last five authors' excerpts to be completed. So that's pretty cool. I also include a one page intro to each excerpt (I say 'excerpt' although some, admittedly, are presented in full) providing context, rationale for inclusion, and sometimes a bit of a bio. Of those intros I am 2/3 done - with about 25 to go. 

The authors can be broken down in a couple interesting ways. First, fairly roughly, through type of writing:

Literature (28):

Novelists/Short Stories (11): Cervantes, Swift, Austen, Carroll, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Twain, Joyce, Kafka, Borges, Orwell

Poets (11): Homer, Lucretius, Virgil, Beowulf, Dante, Gawain, Chaucer, Donne, Wordsworth, Rimbaud, Ginsburg

Playwrights (6): Sophocles, Aristophanes, Euripides, Shakespeare, Ines de la Cruz, Beckett

Social Science (26):

Politics (9): Cicero, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, HJM, Thoreau, Lincoln, Mill, Herzl

Sociologists (7): Pizan, Castiglione, Montaigne, Wollstonecraft, Mackay, Du Bois, de Beauvoir

Historians (6): Thucydides, Tacitus, Plutarch, Comnena, Las Casas, Gibbon

Economists (3): Smith, Marx, Keynes

Psychologists (2): Freud, Piaget

Science (16):

Physicists (8): Galileo, Newton, Dalton, Oersted, Rutherford, Einstein, Heisenberg, Schrödinger

Biologists (5): Harvey, Darwin, Mendel, Pasteur, Carson

Astronomers (2): Copernicus, Hubble

General (1): Bacon

Philosophers (14): Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Descartes, Hume, La Rochefoucauld, Kant, Hegel, Emerson, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Camus, Wittgenstein

Theologians (6): Bible, Augustine, Benedict, Aquinas, Luther, Pascal

Mathematicians (5): Euclid, Archimedes, Viete, Hardy, Turing

Art (4): Da Vinci, Benjamin, Ernst, Sontag

Further they can be distinguished by language of publication (you could also do nationality, but that gets quite complex):

English language: 36 (Wollstonecraft, Darwin, Bacon, Shakespeare, Orwell, Carson, Hobbes, Mill, Hume, Gibbon, Thoreau, Emerson, Du Bois, Smith, Rutherford, HJM, Beowulf, Gawain, Chaucer, Dalton, Austen, Carroll, Twain, Swift, Donne, Wordsworth, Schrödinger, Hubble, Ginsburg, Beckett, Joyce, Lincoln, Hardy, Mackay, Turing, Sontag, Keynes)

Latin: 17 (Lucretius, Seneca, Aurelius, Cicero, Virgil, More, Newton, Copernicus, Harvey, Descartes, Benedict, Augustine, Tacitus, Luther, Aquinas, Viete, Oersted)

German: 13 (Einstein, Heisenberg, Heidegger, Kant, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Freud, Benjamin, Marx, Mendel, Kafka, Hegel, Herzl)

Greek: 11 (Sophocles, Euripides, Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Aristophanes, Euclid, Archimedes, Thucydides, Plutarch, Comnena)

French: 10 (Pizan, Rochefoucauld, Montaigne, Pascal, Pasteur, Camus, Rousseau, Piaget, Rimbaud, de Beauvoir)

Italian: 5 (Da Vinci, Galileo, Dante, Machiavelli, Castiglione)

Spanish: 4 (Cervantes, Las Casas, Ines de la Cruz, Borges)

Russian: 2 (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky)

Hebrew: 1 (Bible)

Danish: 1 (Kierkegaard)

None: 1 (Ernst)

What do you think? Who is missing? Who shouldn't be on there? Do you agree that the traditional 'West' became increasingly meaningless in a post-1960s globalized world? If not, who should come after Susan Sontag? Let me know what you think.