If anyone’s got a few minutes I could do with a bit of help with something.

A little while back I decided to work on a bit of new project, a website around the general theme of democracy but with something a slant towards online democracy, blogging, etc.

What I have in mind is something that’s part commentary, part resource, part ‘how to’ guide and part gateway to the world of politics and democracy as it exists and develops online. I’d also quite like to it evolve over time into something of collaborative project, one that’s open to anyone who’s interested in pitching in.

I supposed if there’s a question I’d like it to at least partially answer it would be along the lines of…

‘I’m interested in democracy/politics, etc. How do I get started?”

So, in between everything else I do, I’ve been working away to get the template for the site looking the way I want it and thinking about some the things I’d like to include from the outset.

One of the things I thought would be pretty useful would be a repository of ‘core’ political texts, the kind of classic stuff that you’d consider a ‘must read’ for anyone with a genuine interest in politics and democracy. So over the last couple of days I’ve started tracking down and collating various texts from variety of sources, which I’ll compile into PDF documents before putting together a starter library.

And that’s where, hopefully, you may be able to help.

So far I’ve tracked down a fair few of what I’d think of as the ‘essentials’, things like Magna Carta, The Prince, Leviathan, Wealth of Nations, Rights of Man, Communist Manifesto and a fair few others going back as far as Plato (The Republic) and Sun Tzu (The Art of War). The issue is that left to my own devices, this collection will inevitably reflect as much on my personal tastes as aything else - you can’t help but be biased - which means that with me being me there’ll be a bit of left wing slant to things.

So the question is what would you regard as the ‘essentials’, the ‘must read’ political and related texts?

I’m really looking ideas as to what to include in the library, assuming that I can source the full texts, of course. What are the classic political texts that everyone should read?

So, over to you… you tell me what should be included and I’ll do the scut work of tracking down and compiling them into a resource library.

Just one thing to note, though. We will need to stick to the classics, in the sense that everything will have to be out of copyright and in the public domain but apart from that, anything - more or less - goes although I probably would draw the line at ‘Mein Kampf’ unless anyone can come up with a good argument to persuade me otherwise.

I you can think of anything, just drop me a note in the comments and even if it something seems so obvious to you that I must have thought of it, mention it anyway - I’d rather be pointed to stuff I’ve already got than miss out on something important.

Thanks