Viggo Mortensen's Reading List

"There is nothing more important than the natural world we live in, and we are bound to affect it positively or negatively by virtue of our relatively brief individual and collective presence. Darwin’s visionary study of the evolution of living beings on our planet is a crucial guide to our understanding of why we are here and what we might to do to live in harmony with our environment."

"The notions we have in the United States and in other countries that function to a better or lesser degree as nation states with variations of democratic, representative government as their political systems would not exist without Plato’s work."

"For me this is as every bit as important a guide in terms of personal moral ethics as Plato’s work is. Another side of the same coin. The timeless lessons that can be had from Plato and Lao Tzu reinforce each other in many ways."

"With all of its inevitable sins of omission and generalization, this great compilation of Western philosophical ideas and currents from pre-Socratic times until the middle of the 20th century is an invaluable and accessible guide to our shared social history."

"There are many poets that I might have included in this list of books, but, to my mind, Shakespeare is the greatest of all in terms of the breadth of his knowledge, his lyricism, humor and the universal applicability of his work."

"I debated between Cervantes’ ‘Don Quijote’ and ‘Martín Fierro,’ because they both are great classic epic stories in the Spanish language, but ended up choosing José Hernández’s great poetic work because of my early connection with it as a child growing up in Argentina."

"This is the best book for understanding the early history of society, literature and politics of Northern Europe. Without Saxo’s research and extensive work in compiling ancient texts and oral stories, our knowledge of early Nordic, Germanic, Celtic and English cultures and nation-building would be far poorer than it is."

"If every U.S. citizen could have the benefit of knowing Zinn’s collection of historical texts from a wide range of relatively known and unknown people throughout our country’s history, there would be a lot better quality in our current political class and in the style and substance of our governance."