Episode · The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast · 2025-04-07
Books mentioned on 536. Ancient Stories That Bridge The Heavens & The Earth | Jacob Howland
Jordan Peterson sits down with author, professor, and Dean of Intellectual Foundations at the University of Austin, Jacob Howland.
Jacob Howland recommended The Assembly of Women and The making of the atomic bomb by Richard Rhodes, and discussed How Much Land Does a Man Need? by Leo Tolstoy, The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud by David Weiss Halivni, Phaedo, The Dialogues of Plato, Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud, Modern Classics Civilization and Its Discontent by Sigmund Freud, Two photographers: Robert Capa centennial - Gerda Taro retrospective by Gerta Taro, and The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Jordan Peterson discussed War on the West by Douglas Murray.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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How Much Land Does a Man Need?
Leo Tolstoy's classic short story examines human greed, desire, and the ultimate measure of mortality through the journey of a peasant who pushes himself to acquire more and more land.
Discussed“One of my earliest memories was being in Iowa City when I was a kid. My mother was reading me a story by Toltoy called How Much Land Does a Man Need?”
Where to get it
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The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud
Discussed“There are two Talmuds. The main one is the Babylonian Talmud, two and a half million words.”
Where to get it
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Phaedo
Discussed“Then just like Plato starts, you know, in a dialogue called the Lockis, Socrates runs into a couple guys.”
Where to get it
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The Dialogues of Plato
The Dialogues of Plato by Plato is a foundational collection of classical Greek philosophical texts utilizing conversational formats to explore ethics, politics, and metaphysics.
Discussed“Uh in Plato it shows up in the very first sentence of Plato's Fedrris.”
Where to get it
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Civilization and Its Discontents
Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents is a foundational psychoanalytic text exploring the inevitable friction between individual desires for freedom and the restrictive demands of civilized society.
Discussed“I mean Freud has this phrase in civilization and it's discontent about how modern man is a prosthetic god right like we we equip ourselves with all these tools and things like this”
Where to get it
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Modern Classics Civilization and Its Discontent
Discussed“I mean Freud has this phrase in civilization and it's discontent about how modern man is a prosthetic god right like we we equip ourselves with all these tools and things like this”
Where to get it
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The Assembly of Women
The Assembly of Women is a classic comedic play by Aristophanes that satirizes radical politics, gender roles, and utopian egalitarianism through a fictional scenario where Athenian women take over the government and institute a collective society.
Recommended“But more important is Aristophanes play Assembly Women in which the women take over and establish a communist society.”
Where to get it
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The making of the atomic bomb
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is a comprehensive, Pulitzer Prize-winning history that chronicles the scientific discoveries, political pressures, and personal personalities behind the creation of nuclear weapons.
Recommended“One of my favorite books, which I'm now listening to, I read it 30 years ago, is The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodess. And what's so great about this book is, I mean, it has many wonderful features.”
Where to get it
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War on the West
The War on the West by Douglas Murray is a cultural commentary examining contemporary criticisms of Western civilization and the ideological battles shaping modern political discourse in America and Britain.
Discussed“Douglas Murray's book, The War on the West, he's got this wonderful passage where he says, "You can stand in front of a painting and you can look at it and you can say, hm, um this peculiar blue pigment, was that sourced from um some country that was in poverty?”
Where to get it
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Two photographers: Robert Capa centennial - Gerda Taro retrospective
Discussed“I knew this quote before I found this out cuz I read Foust one and two and there's a line in there Mephostophles.”
Where to get it
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The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri is an epic 14th-century poem detailing the soul's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.
Discussed“And you know my image for this I I started thinking about the inferno as a kind of political text. Oh yeah. And the fact is that you know you get to the ninth circle and Dante's beautiful uh creation invention is that it's ice.”
Where to get it
