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Plato’s "Republic" is the most frequently assigned book at the eight best universities in the United States, which are also leading in the world according to international assessments.

Simultaneously, "Republic" is the second most read book at all US universities, as is clear from the study of the educational website Open Syllabus Explorer.
 
The second list contains other significant works of ancient Greek literature, namely "Ethics" by Aristotle and Sophocles’ tragedy "Oedipus Rex".

The website researchers have come to these results having explored the online database of books that have been studied over the past 10 years in more than 100 courses at US universities.

The eight best universities form the so-called Ivy League of the higher education in the US, which includes the universities of Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Pennsylvania, Yale, Cornell, Columbia and Dartmouth College.

That list also includes the following works: "The Clash of Civilizations" by Samuel Huntington, "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk, "Leviathan" by Thomas Hobbes, "The Prince" by Machiavelli, "Democracy in America" ​​by Alexis de Tocqueville, "A Theory of Justice" by John Rawls, "A Letter from the Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill and "The Evolution of Cooperation" by Robert Axelrod.

The most studied book in all US universities is "The Elements of Style", followed by "Republic" at the second place and Aristotle’s "Ethics" at the fifth place. "The Communist Manifesto" by Marx (fourth position) is also on the list as well as "Oedipus Rex" at the eighth place, one position ahead of Mary Shelley’s "Frankenstein".

"There are two ways to obtain an Ivy League education", underlines the newspaper Washington Post, presenting the study. "One is to spend $200,000 to study at one of the US universities, considered the best in the world. The other is to read the books that are assigned at these universities."