10 Classic Books That Shaped History's Greatest Minds, and Why They Still Matter

In "10 Books That Secretly Built History's Greatest Minds (and how they'll build yours)," published on June 5, 2026 on his YouTube channel and running about 13 minutes, educator Stephen Petro walks through ten classic books. He says he has more than 13 years as a peer-reviewed scholar and educator. His argument is that many famous thinkers, leaders and writers read the same small set of books, and that each one trains a specific mental skill. Below are the main takeaways, then a closer look at each book: what it is, why the video says it mattered, and why it is still worth reading. At the end there is a table with free places to read every book online, plus a timestamped guide to the video.

This is an independent summary written by GNOUP. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Stephen Petro, his channel or any publisher. The historical stories below (who read which book, and what they said about it) are the host's claims as told in the video. GNOUP has not checked each one. GNOUP has no connection to the paid courses or community promoted in the video and does not link to them.

Key takeaways

These are Stephen Petro's views and interpretations, in our words.

• Great minds were trained, not just born. Petro's starting point is that history's standout thinkers became who they were largely through how they trained their minds, and that many of them read the same books.
• Each book builds a different skill. He matches every book to one ability: modeling character (Plutarch), proof from first principles (Euclid), explaining the world through natural causes (Lucretius), calm in hard times (Boethius), intellectual honesty (Montaigne), leading through character (Xenophon), knowing what you can control (Epictetus), governing yourself first (Confucius), seeing power realistically (Thucydides) and thinking in stories (the Arabian Nights).
• Learn from people as well as from principles. He says Plutarch teaches through examples of how real people behaved under pressure, which helps you picture what excellence looks like and measure yourself against it.
• A claim isn't knowledge until it's shown. Through the story of Abraham Lincoln studying Euclid as a traveling lawyer, Petro argues that learning what it means to demonstrate something, step by step, sharpens every argument you make.
• Focus on what's in your power. His most extreme example is Admiral James Stockdale, who he says survived seven and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam partly by reciting Epictetus' teachings to himself.
• Honesty with yourself matters. He praises Montaigne for examining his own contradictions and doubts openly and following his thinking where it leads, not where he wants it to go.
• Stories are a way of thinking too. He closes with Scheherazade from the Arabian Nights, who survives by storytelling, to argue that narrative, not only analysis, is central to how we think.

One note from the video's own description: the host says he misspoke when he called Alexander Hamilton a U.S. president (Hamilton never was), and that Lincoln mastered six books of Euclid's Elements, not "all 6" (the Elements has 13 books).

The 10 books, and why each one matters

1. Plutarch's Lives (Plutarch, about 100 AD)

What it is: Plutarch was a Greek writer and priest at Delphi in the Roman era. His Parallel Lives is a set of biographies that mostly pairs a famous Greek with a famous Roman, such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, and compares their characters.

Why the video says it mattered: Petro says Napoleon called it a manual for military and civil rule, George Washington modeled himself on its heroes, Shakespeare drew on it for Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, and the authors of the Federalist Papers drew on it. He also notes that Charlotte Corday read Plutarch the day before she killed the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, while stressing that his point is about the book's influence, not the readers' morals.

Why it's relevant now: Plutarch is more interested in character than in battles. He looks at how ambition, temper and judgment shaped each life. That makes it a useful book for anyone who learns best from role models and cautionary tales, whether in leadership, careers or ordinary life.

2. Euclid's Elements (Euclid, about 300 BC)

What it is: A mathematics textbook in 13 books by Euclid, a Greek mathematician who worked in Alexandria. Starting from a few definitions and assumptions, it proves hundreds of results in geometry and number theory, one step at a time. It was used to teach mathematics for more than 2,000 years.

Why the video says it mattered: Petro says Lincoln carried it as a traveling lawyer and studied it at night, not to learn geometry, but to learn what it truly means to "demonstrate" something. He says Einstein called his childhood copy his "holy little geometry book," and that Newton, Hobbes, Spinoza, Copernicus and Galileo all read it.

Why it's relevant now: In a time full of confident claims online, the Elements is a training ground for the opposite habit: state your starting points, then show each step. That habit of reasoning carries over to law, science, programming, debate and checking whether a claim actually holds up.

3. De Rerum Natura, or On the Nature of Things (Lucretius, about 60 BC)

What it is: A long Latin poem by the Roman poet Lucretius explaining the philosophy of Epicurus. It describes a universe made of atoms and empty space, governed by natural causes rather than the whims of gods, and argues that understanding nature frees people from fear, including the fear of death.

Why the video says it mattered: Petro says the poem nearly vanished in the Middle Ages until the Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini found a copy in a monastery library in 1417. He says Thomas Jefferson owned several Latin editions and called himself an Epicurean, Montaigne's annotated copy survives at Cambridge University Library, Machiavelli copied it by hand, and Newton, Galileo and Darwin read it. He also points to Stephen Greenblatt's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Swerve, which argues that its rediscovery helped spark the modern world.

Why it's relevant now: It is one of the earliest attempts to explain everything from weather to disease with natural causes. Reading it shows how old the scientific way of asking questions is, and how a good explanation can calm fear.

4. The Consolation of Philosophy (Boethius, 524 AD)

What it is: Boethius was a Roman senator, scholar and senior official under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric. He was accused of treason, imprisoned and executed. He wrote this book in prison: a dialogue, in prose and verse, between himself and Lady Philosophy about fortune, happiness and what truly belongs to us.

Why the video says it mattered: Petro, who first read it in undergraduate philosophy classes, calls it one of the most underrated books in philosophy. He says Alfred the Great translated it into Old English, Chaucer into Middle English and Queen Elizabeth I translated it herself, while Dante cited it, Thomas Aquinas wrote commentary on it and Thomas More read it while imprisoned. He says that for about a thousand years it was the most widely read book in Europe after the Bible.

Why it's relevant now: Its central question is what is left when luck turns against you. Its answer is to rest your sense of self on things fortune can't take away. That speaks to anyone dealing with a lost job, an illness or a sudden setback.

5. Essays (Michel de Montaigne, 1580)

What it is: Montaigne was a French nobleman and former magistrate who retired to his estate to write. The first editions of his Essays appeared in 1580. The French essai means "attempt," and his short, wandering pieces on friendship, education, fear, cannibals and his own habits gave the essay form its name.

Why the video says it mattered: Petro calls it possibly the most broadly influential secular book in Western literature. He says Shakespeare read it, Pascal argued fiercely against it, and Nietzsche, Emerson, Rousseau, Virginia Woolf, Darwin, Freud and Marx cited it as an influence. He also links Descartes to the climate of doubt Montaigne helped create.

Why it's relevant now: Montaigne's subject was himself: his changing opinions, his uncertainties and his contradictions. In an age of hot takes, he is a model of thinking out loud honestly and admitting what you don't know.

6. Cyropaedia, or The Education of Cyrus (Xenophon, about 370 BC)

What it is: Xenophon was an Athenian soldier, historian and student of Socrates. The Cyropaedia is a partly fictional account of the upbringing and rule of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire, written as a portrait of the ideal leader.

Why the video says it mattered: Petro calls it the least known book on his list relative to its influence. He says Alexander the Great read it, Scipio Africanus carried a copy, Caesar and Cicero drew on it, Jefferson owned two copies and Benjamin Franklin read it. He says Machiavelli's The Prince can partly be read as a response to it, and that management thinker Peter Drucker ranked Xenophon above every leadership book of his own lifetime.

Why it's relevant now: The book treats leadership as a matter of character: earning loyalty, looking after the people you lead and keeping your word. Petro's own takeaway is that how a leader treats people when it costs them something shows who that leader really is. That is still the test people apply to managers, coaches and public figures.

7. Enchiridion (Epictetus, early 2nd century AD)

What it is: Epictetus was born into slavery and later became a leading Stoic teacher. The Enchiridion, Greek for "handbook," is a short summary of his teachings compiled by his student Arrian. It opens with the idea that some things are up to us and some are not.

Why the video says it mattered: Petro says Marcus Aurelius credited Epictetus as a foundation of his thinking, Frederick the Great took the book on campaign, Theodore Roosevelt took it to the Amazon and Montaigne had a line from it carved into a beam in his study. His main example is Admiral James Stockdale, shot down over Vietnam in 1965, who later wrote that memorizing Epictetus helped him survive years of captivity.

Why it's relevant now: The "dichotomy of control" is the core of modern Stoicism, which has a big popular following today. It is a simple practice: sort what you can change from what you can't, and put your energy into the first.

8. The Analects of Confucius (compiled by his followers, about 5th century BC onward)

What it is: A collection of short sayings and conversations of Confucius, the Chinese teacher who lived from about 551 to 479 BC, gathered by his students and their followers. It covers virtue, learning, family, ritual and good government.

Why the video says it mattered: Petro says the Analects shaped the intellectual foundation of East Asia for two thousand years, and that Western readers rarely engage with it seriously. He says Voltaire hung a portrait of Confucius in his library and used Confucian ideas against religious intolerance, Leibniz drew on it, Emerson cited it, and a 1687 Latin translation became a key resource for Enlightenment thinkers imagining a moral order not based on revealed religion.

Why it's relevant now: Its idea that order starts with governing yourself, then your family, then institutions, is a practical framework for personal conduct. It is also essential for understanding cultures that hundreds of millions of people live in today.

9. History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides, about 400 BC)

What it is: Thucydides was an Athenian general and historian. His account of the long war between Athens and Sparta (431 to 404 BC; his history breaks off before the end) includes famous speeches and the "Melian Dialogue," a debate about power and justice.

Why the video says it mattered: Petro says Thomas Hobbes translated it at age 40 and called it the most instructive work he had read, Alexander the Great kept it on campaign, Frederick the Great studied it and John Adams considered it essential for statesmen. Petro read parts of it in an undergraduate course on ancient Greece.

Why it's relevant now: Thucydides tried to describe events without myths or moral decoration: who wanted what, who had what and what they would do to get it. Petro says it still "reads like an account of last week." Its analysis of rising powers, fear and miscalculation is still widely cited in debates about international politics.

10. The Arabian Nights, or One Thousand and One Nights (various authors, compiled over centuries)

What it is: A large collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian folk tales gathered over centuries. They are framed by the story of Scheherazade, who saves her life by telling a king a new story each night and stopping at a cliffhanger. The stories reached Europe through Antoine Galland's French translation in the early 1700s.

Why the video says it mattered: Petro says Goethe read it repeatedly, Dickens called it one of his most formative reading experiences, Proust drew on its structure and Borges said it shaped his understanding of stories. He adds that Kafka, Tolkien, Tennyson, Coleridge and Stendhal all read it deeply.

Why it's relevant now: Stories inside stories, cliffhangers and serialized plots are still the backbone of novels, TV series and podcasts. Petro's point is that thinking in narratives, not only in isolated facts, is a skill in itself.

The books at a glance

Every book on this list is old enough to be in the public domain, so you can read free, legal English translations online. The links below go to Project Gutenberg, a free digital library, except for Euclid, which links to a free illustrated online edition by Professor David E. Joyce of Clark University. These are older translations. Modern translations, which are often easier to read, are available at libraries and bookstores.

Dates are approximate and follow the video, except the Enchiridion, which the video doesn't date. Epictetus taught in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD. For the skill the host links to each book, see the sections above.

Watch the video

10 Books That Secretly Built History's Greatest Minds (and how they'll build yours) on YouTube (Stephen Petro's channel, published June 5, 2026)

Episode guide

The start times come from the video's official timestamp list in its description, which labels each section "Book 1," "Book 2" and so on. We added the book names from the video itself. Select a time to jump to that point on YouTube.

• 0:00: The books behind the world's greatest minds
• 0:27: Book 1: Plutarch's Lives
• 1:51: Book 2: Euclid's Elements
• 3:03: Book 3: Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
• 4:26: Book 4: Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy
• 5:58: Book 5: Montaigne's Essays
• 7:17: Book 6: Xenophon, Cyropaedia
• 8:18: Book 7: Epictetus, Enchiridion
• 9:23: Book 8: The Analects of Confucius
• 10:51: Book 9: Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
• 11:53: Book 10: The Arabian Nights

About this summary

This article was prepared from the video's automatically generated YouTube transcript and its description, which includes the official timestamps, the book list and the host's own corrections. Background facts about each book (author, approximate date, subject) are widely documented general knowledge. Transcripts can contain errors, and the historical anecdotes are the host's claims, so for the exact words and context, watch the video. Book links point to free public-domain editions. GNOUP is not connected to Project Gutenberg, Clark University or any publisher.