City of God

Augustine’s answer to the charge that Rome fell because it had abandoned its gods: twenty-two books, written between roughly AD 413 and 426, setting the earthly city against the heavenly one. In making that case he had to give an account of what all of human history is for, which is why the book is usually treated as the first full Christian philosophy of history rather than only a work of apologetics.

Why it’s on the list: It is the second text in History, Historiography, and the Philosophy of History — the list’s longest course — sitting between Sallust’s Catiline’s War and the modern sequence of Collingwood, Becker, Marx, Nietzsche, Löwith, Strauss and Fukuyama. City of God is where that sequence starts: the first text on the syllabus to claim history has a direction.

Where I saw it: Assigned in History, Historiography, and the Philosophy of History on the University of Austin’s Fall 2025 reading list — “65 Texts Our Students Are Reading”, 65 assigned texts across 12 courses, shared by @uaustinorg on November 13 2025 and saved to Kyle’s Apple Note “Books To Read”. The full curriculum is transcribed on UATX Fall Reading List.

Connections

• UATX Fall Reading List — the curriculum this was assigned in.
• The University of Austin — the institution whose course list this is.
• St. Augustine — the author.
• Confessions (Augustine) — his other work already in the anti-library.
• Christianity
• History — the course subject.
• Religion