Gribbin, John. Science: A History 1543-2001. London: Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 2002. The rise of modern science in print culture transformed the agonistic spirit of pro-and-con debate in the verbal arts of rhetoric and dialectic to a new level, just as the rise of modern capitalism in print culture also transformed the agonistic spirit to a new level.
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. The translator is not identified by name. London: Routledge, 1949. A classic.
Koziak, Barbara. Retrieving Political Emotion: Thumos , Aristotle, and Gender. University Park, Pennsylvania: PennsylvaniaStateUniversity Press, 2000. The part of the human psyche that Plato and Aristotle refer to as "thumos" (usually rendered as the spirited part) is the psychodynamism of agonistic behavior.
Lloyd, G. E. R. Polarity and Analogy: Two Types of Argumentation in Early Greek Thought. Cambridge, England: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1966.
MacLean, Paul D. The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in Paleocerebral Functions. New York and London: Plenum Press, 1990. Paul D. MacLean contends that the human brain is made up of three separate brains, which function together interactively in the way that he characterizes as constituting the triune human brain. What MacLean refers to as the reptilian brain is the biological base for all agonistic tendencies in all animals, including the human animal.
Maier, Pauline; Merritt Roe Smith; Alexander Keyssar; and Daniel J. Kevles. Inventing America: A History of the United States, 2nd ed. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2006. Very accessible and thorough textbook about the agonistic spirit as inventive. Also published in a two-volume paperback edition.
Moore, Robert and Douglas Gillette. The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight [Archetype] in the Male Psyche. New York: William Morrow, 1992. Very accessible. (There is a corresponding Warrior archetype in the female psyche.)
Nagy, Gregory. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry, 2nd ed. Baltimore, Maryland; and London, England: JohnsHopkinsUniversity Press, 1998.
Neumann, Eric. The Origins and History of Consciousness, translated from the 1949 German original by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton, New Jersey: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1954. A classic.
Ong, Walter J. "Latin Language Study as a Renaissance Puberty Rite. Studies in Philology, 56, 2 (April 1959): 103-24. Reprinted in Ong's Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture (Ithaca, New York; and London, England: Cornell University Press, 1971: 113-41).
Ong, Walter J. The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History. New Haven, Connecticut; and London, England: YaleUniversity Press, 1967. See pages 192-286.
Ong, Walter J. "Rhetoric and the Origins of Consciousness." Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture. Ithaca, New York; and London, England: CornellUniversity Press, 1971. 1-22.
Ong, Walter J. Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness. Ithaca, New York and London, England: CornellUniversity Press, 1981. Very accessible. Ong's 1979 Messenger Lectures at CornellUniversity.
Ong, Walter J. "The Agonistic Base of Scientifically Abstract Thought: Issues in fighting for life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness." In Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Desmond J. Fitzgerald, and John T. Noonan, Jr., eds., Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (Catholic University of America), 56 (1982): 109-24. Reprinted in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Cresskill, New Jersey, 2002: 479-95).
Ong, Walter J. Introduction [To Milton's Logic]. In Maurice Kelley, ed., Complete Prose Works of John Milton: Volume VIII: 1666-1682. New Haven, Connecticut; and London, England: YaleUniversity Press, 1982. 139-205. Reprinted as "Introduction to Milton's Logic" in Ong's Faith and Contexts: Volume Four, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999: 111-42.
Parks, Ward. Verbal Dueling in Heroic Narrative: The Homeric and Old English Traditions. Princeton, New Jersey: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990.
