Ten books that changed the world - The Guardian

[AprilHare]

Ten books that changed the world - The Guardian

From Euclid’s Elements to Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, and from Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex to Shakespeare First Folio … 10 authors choose books ‘not of an age, but for all time’

Read more here:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...ld?CMP=soc_568
The list:

1. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
2. The Analects by Confucius
3. The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
4. Elements by Euclid
5. The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
6. A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
7. The Communist Manifesto by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
8. Beloved by Toni Morrison
9. Comedies, Histories & Tragedies by William Shakespeare
10. Scripture

Interesting selection. Aldo Leopold is well known in Wisconsin, but I had no idea he was so renown world wide. I know that limiting it to ten books imposes limits it's hard to quibble about some of these. I might have included Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Newton on the list. I also with so many other potential choices about the black experience in America have selected a different book than Beloved, but that's why lists like this are fun.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

Interesting selection. Aldo Leopold is well known in Wisconsin, but I had no idea he was so renown world wide. I know that limiting it to ten books imposes limits it's hard to quibble about some of these.

I've never heard of the Leopold, and I spent a fair few years in school and a bit of uni time in the USA. The list seems to have made a small effort to reduce the Eurocentrism/USAcentrism that tend to dog such lists, but perhaps not entirely successfully?

[issybird]

"Scripture" is cheating, IMO. On other fronts, Morrison does seem out of her depth, and I'd pick Rachel Carson over Leopold. And shouldn't The Communist Manifesto be offset by Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations? For that matter, Capital would be a better choice than the Manifesto.

[HarryT]

I've never heard of the following:

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Scripture

Unless "Scripture" is supposed, perhaps, to refer to the Judeo-Christian Bible, which would be flagrant cheating.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've never heard of the following:

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Scripture

Unless "Scripture" is supposed, perhaps, to refer to the Judeo-Christian Bible, which would be flagrant cheating.

"Scripture" appears to be referring to writings from the three Abrahamic religions, including Islam.

Addendum: The specific writings were the Tanakh, the Christian Greek scriptures, and the Quran.

[Catlady]

John Locke's Second Treatise should be on the list.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by issybird

"Scripture" is cheating, IMO. On other fronts, Morrison does seem out of her depth, and I'd pick Rachel Carson over Leopold. And shouldn't The Communist Manifesto be offset by Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations? For that matter, Capital would be a better choice than the Manifesto.

I would say the Morrison is quite a stretch. Unfortunately, Rachel Carson seems to have been discredited, or at a minimum is considered controversial. But certainly it was an influential work.

http://www.perc.org/blog/silent-spri...arsons-classic

There are quite a few works that I would consider to be more influential than some of the works listed.

[AnotherCat]

The Second Sex, Beloved and A Sand County Almanac seem to me to be of a PC selection persuasion or otherwise representing the pet favorites of the list makers rather than being based on a strong knowledge of literature, the sciences, political science, economics, etc. For example, the Second Sex and Beloved are both feminist oriented (so were the book choosers unbiased?), and who knows anything of The Sand County Almanac beyond environmental activists? They are also not well known (as HarryT has alluded to).

I would suggest that there are multitudes of books that have changed the world more than those with respect to feminism; I will swerve away from a definite nomination due to my compromised position of being a rather dated male but I see books that I would have thought have been more influential, and certainly much better known than The Second Sex.

As to other books and just sticking with ones that have been mentioned already here, the omission of Newton's Principia is a surprise to me (although I suspect that the Principia is going to be a rather hard read for and despite its importance beyond the visible horizon of most book list compilers).

And while I am no lover of Silent Spring I would have thought it much more influential for an environmental pick (I regard it as overwritten towards being activist rather than ever being reliable scientifically or politically. And I felt that way even back around 1970 when I first read it, and so then not influenced by the more recent criticism of it. But influential it was.).

Then, if novels are to be included e.g. Beloved, what is more important from the influencing world change point of view, a specific novel itself or the books that precipitated the concept of a novel. For example, The Epic of Gilgamesh (albeit that was originally on clay, not paper) and Robinson Crusoe; do we give more importance with respect to changing the world to recent novels or to those books that created the world of literature that novels now live in?

So, from my perspective, just another list for the trash can.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

The Second Sex, Beloved and A Sand County Almanac seem to me to be of a PC selection persuasion or otherwise representing the pet favorites of the list makers rather than being based on a strong knowledge of literature, the sciences, political science, economics, etc. For example, the Second Sex and Beloved are both feminist oriented (so were the book choosers unbiased?), and who knows anything of The Sand County Almanac beyond environmental activists? They are also not well known (as HarryT has alluded to).

I would suggest that there are multitudes of books that have changed the world more than those with respect to feminism; I will swerve away from a definite nomination due to my compromised position of being a rather dated male but I see books that I would have thought have been more influential, and certainly much better known than The Second Sex.

As to other books and just sticking with ones that have been mentioned already here, the omission of Newton's Principia is a surprise to me (although I suspect that the Principia is going to be a rather hard read for and despite its importance beyond the visible horizon of most book list compilers).

And while I am no lover of Silent Spring I would have thought it much more influential for an environmental pick (I regard it as overwritten towards being activist rather than ever being reliable scientifically or politically. And I felt that way even back around 1970 when I first read it, and so then not influenced by the more recent criticism of it).

Then, if novels are to be included e.g. Beloved, what is more important from the influencing world change point of view, a specific novel itself or the books that precipitated the concept of a novel. For example, The Epic of Gilgamesh (albeit that was originally on clay, not paper) and Robinson Crusoe; do we give more importance with respect to changing the world to recent novels or to those books that created the world of literature that novels now live in?

So, from my perspective, just another list for the trash can.

Better to be a dated male than an undated male!

Why do you say that Robinson Crusoe should be included? It was certainly a great novel, by I don't know that it changed the world. For that matter, I don't really think that Shakespeare changed the world per se. Really, it's hard to think of a novel that changed the world. Uncle Tom's Cabin, perhaps?

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Better to be a dated male than an undated male!

Why do you say that Robinson Crusoe should be included? It was certainly a great novel, by I don't know that it changed the world. For that matter, I don't really think that Shakespeare changed the world per se. Really, it's hard to think of a novel that changed the world. Uncle Tom's Cabin, perhaps?

The mention of Uncle Tom's Cabin is certainly worthwhile.:

According to legend, Abraham Lincoln greeted Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862 by saying "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war." Whether the story is true or not, the sentiment underscores the public connection between Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Civil War.

from https://www.harrietbeecherstowecente...c/impact.shtml

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by issybird

"Scripture" is cheating, IMO. On other fronts, Morrison does seem out of her depth, and I'd pick Rachel Carson over Leopold. And shouldn't The Communist Manifesto be offset by Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations? For that matter, Capital would be a better choice than the Manifesto.

I'd have to agree about Rachel Carson - in terms of the impact it had at the time of its publication. Including Leopold IMHO is akin to nominating Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - as far as world impact ....

I also think Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin had a world impact far, far greater than Toni Morrison.

And what about Mein Kampf? Or Mao's Little Red Book? These certainly had global impacts ...

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

...Why do you say that Robinson Crusoe should be included? It was certainly a great novel, by I don't know that it changed the world...

I was not intending to suggest that it should be in the list, but just that as it is an example of the tribe of books back in history that have created, and so changed the world in so far as literature as we know it is concerned. That with respect to my contention that perhaps these books that paved the way to the literary world as we know it, and in which world more modern novels reside, may be more important in a world changing way than any modern novel can be?

Apart from its merits along those lines (recognising though that it is but one of a tribe of books establishing literature as we know it) Robinson Crusoe was also very influential in establishing fiction in book form as popular reading (that in my view, but again it was not alone in that) as from the first edition it has been one of the most read books (there were, I think, four editions in its first year). Its complexity, fluid prose, etc. being a step beyond what had gone before gives it an important position in the development of English literature. Again, I am not suggesting that it is alone in that, but just suggesting that books such as this (and Gilgamesh, being one of many other examples and perhaps the first) may be more important in changing the world than the modern novels that followed because they paved the way for those later novels.

EDIT: As Hamlet53 said .

[poohbear_nc]

So, from my perspective, just another list for the trash can.

.

To flaunt such a grandiose title as "changed the world" .... shouldn't the criteria for inclusion include a 'yes' answer to "If this book had never been written/published/read, would this substantially have changed either the history or present state of the world?"?

Would this make the list worthwhile/important/honest?

Or is this just the Guardian filling in empty space at the end of summer, where there is no real news to publish?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

I was not intending to suggest that it should be in the list, but just that as it is an example of the tribe of books back in history that have created, and so changed the world in so far as literature as we know it is concerned. That with respect to my contention that perhaps these books that paved the way to the literary world as we know it, and in which world more modern novels reside, may be more important in a world changing way than any modern novel can be?

Apart from its merits along those lines (recognising though that it is but one of a tribe of books establishing literature as we know it) Robinson Crusoe was also very influential in establishing fiction in book form as popular reading (that in my view, but again it was not alone in that) as from the first edition it has been one of the most read books (there were, I think, four editions in its first year). Its complexity, fluid prose, etc. being a step beyond what had gone before gives it an important position in the development of English literature. Again, I am not suggesting that it is alone in that, but just suggesting that books such as this (and Gilgamesh, being one of many other examples and perhaps the first) may be more important in changing the world than the modern novels that followed because they paved the way for those later novels.

EDIT: As Hamlet53 said .

ok.

I would probably throw the Iliad and Odyssey in as being the most consequential of the early epics.