Here are some Philosophy texts that you should read if you are planning on applying to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at University.

One or two of the following:

• Nigel Warburton, Philosophy: the Basics
• Thomas Nagel, What Does it All Mean
• Stephen Law, The Philosophy Gym

Also:

• David Miller, Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

You should also try to read some primary source material. You don't necessarily need to read a whole text, but it would be a good idea to engage with some excerpts. Some possibilities are given below. You can find extracts from many of these texts in books called 'readers': these are compilations of extracts from primary texts. A list of readers is given at the bottom of the page.

• Plato, The Republic
• Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
• Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
• John Locke, Second Treatise on Government
• Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia
• John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
• Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
• Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
• Roger Scruton, A Political Philosophy: Arguments For Conservatism
• Slavoj Zizek, Trouble in Paradise
• Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism
• Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save
• Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity

Philosophy readers: compilations of primary text extracts.

• Nigel Warburton, Philosophy: Basic Readings
• Robert C. Solomon, Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings