It’s always interesting to see what books and thinkers are cited at conferences. I’m just back from a Franco-British one where the following all featured – it wasn’t as pretentious as the list makes it seem!

Montesquieu’s [amazon_link id=”0521369746″ target=”_blank” ]Spirit of the Laws[/amazon_link]

Beaumarchais (author of [amazon_link id=”0199539979″ target=”_blank” ]Le Mariage de Figaro[/amazon_link] and the first publisher of Voltaire)

John Stuart Mill [amazon_link id=”1492893226″ target=”_blank” ]On Liberty[/amazon_link]

[amazon_link id=”0007489625″ target=”_blank” ]Edmund Burke[/amazon_link] by Jesse Norman

and Helmuth Van Molthke on [amazon_link id=”0891415750″ target=”_blank” ]The Art of War[/amazon_link] (“No plan survives contact with the enemy.”) The last was updated with a quotation from the well-known modern philosopher Mike Tyson: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”