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In the sixteenth century, Machiavelli, a Florentine diplomat pushed out of power, writes this little treatise to explain how a prince seizes power and, above all, how he keeps it. He draws on examples from antiquity and from the Italy of his day, and gives blunt advice: is it better to be feared or loved, to keep your word or to know how to lie? It shows how those who govern, lead or negotiate think: his lessons on power held true then and still do today. The book is so clear-sighted that it gave rise to a word: “Machiavellian”. With the translation always in front of you, you can read this great classic in the language you are learning.

Sunzi, also known as Sun Tzu, a Chinese general and strategist, sets out in thirteen short chapters the principles of war and victory. His central idea is still surprising: the best strategist wins without fighting, by knowing the enemy, knowing himself and choosing the right moment. These principles apply far beyond the battlefield. Today they are used in business, negotiation, sport and everyday life, to anticipate, decide and persuade more effectively. Its short, clear maxims can be read one by one in the language you are learning.

As a young boy, Larry Livingston starts out in a brokerage house, chalking up stock prices on a board. He becomes one of the greatest speculators on Wall Street, and tells of his strokes of genius, his bankruptcies, and everything his mistakes taught him about the markets and about himself. A cult book among traders and investors, still read for its lessons on risk, patience and keeping your emotions in check. Told in the first person, like a long conversation, it is easy to read in the language you are learning.

In 1848, on the eve of the revolutions, Marx and Engels publish this short text, which opens with a famous line: “A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of communism.” They describe history as a struggle between classes, trace the rise of the bourgeoisie and call on workers to unite. Whether or not you share its ideas, few texts have changed the world so much. Its last line, “Workers of the world, unite!”, is known everywhere, and reading it helps you understand a large part of the twentieth century. Written as a call to action, and with the translation always in front of you, it can be read in one sitting in the language you are learning.

At the start of the twentieth century, Emma Goldman, who came from Russia to the United States at sixteen, travels the country defending anarchism, the dream of a society without masters. In these essays she attacks prisons, patriotism, loveless marriage and Puritan hypocrisy, and defends women's right to decide their own lives. Born from her lectures, her writing is direct and hard-hitting. Even today it makes us think about what makes each of us truly free. With the translation always in front of you, you can read these committed texts in the language you are learning.

On a feast day at Piraeus, the port of Athens, Socrates and his friends ask what justice is, and whether the just man is happier than the unjust one. To answer, Socrates imagines an ideal city ruled by philosophers. This is where he tells the famous allegory of the cave: chained prisoners take shadows on a wall for reality. For more than two thousand years, this book has fed debates on power, education and truth. It still helps us ask who should govern, and why. With the translation always in front of you, you can read this great dialogue in the language you are learning.

Why are there so many different species, and why does each one seem made for its surroundings? Charles Darwin starts from concrete observations: breeders' pigeons, plants, the animals of distant islands. From them he draws a simple idea: in the struggle for life, it is the best adapted beings that survive and leave offspring. It is in this book that Darwin sets out his theory of evolution by natural selection. It changed for ever the way we see living things and our own place in nature. With the translation always in front of you, you can read this great classic of science in the language you are learning.

In this American novel from 1905, Jimmy Grayson, an almost unknown young lawyer from the West, is unexpectedly chosen as his party's candidate for President of the United States. Harley, a reporter for a New York newspaper, follows his campaign aboard a special train, and falls for Sylvia, the candidate's niece, an independent young woman from Idaho. But powerful financiers in the party want Grayson to keep quiet about tariffs. A lively account of what goes on behind the scenes of an election campaign, and of the price of honesty in politics. Its dialogue and travel scenes are easy to read in the language you are learning.