Posted on 07/27/2004 12:17:17 PM PDT by Borges
The only entry that surprised me was Gurdjieff - a fascinating figure.
I TRIED reading that book in 1977......YECH!!!
It's interesting that for a discussion on the 100 most influential books of all time he felt he needed to address Ayn Rand at all. Assuming he thinks she was not influential.
I'm guessing he felt that Spencer and Hayek say what Rand said and have cast a wider influence.
It's such a shame the Clintoon's, Kerry's, and Clarke's isn't listed.
Yes - but I'd have gone with Ouspensky's book instead.
"Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care"
Well, its a piece of trash, but it certainly has been influential. Mad magazine wrote a poen about it:
Spock, Spock, the baby Doc
Leads a peace march 'round the block
Everywhere that you will look
Are kids screwed up by his book
I would add The Federalist Papers, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Joyce's Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man.
Dear and Glorious Physician- Taylor Caldwell, 1959
Like Lao-Tzu for all he knew, but my expectation is that he couldn't have maintained an intellectual debate with her for more than 3 minutes. Besides, he didn't bother to evaluated the content of any of the works on his list(else wise he might have eliminated Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Chomsky and Skinner. The qualifier here seems to be the word, "Influential."
So, Mr. Seymour seems to have negated his own credibility and that of his list via his selective 'objectivity.'
Good one.
The New Catechism might be a good addition too.
What about Peyton Place?
What makes a book "third rate" as opposed to "second rate"?
Hey, where's "It Takes A Village"?????..... </scarcasm>
The criteria was merely influence and nothing more. He made the point that it's not a list of literary masterworks (or else Dickens and Goethe would be there)nor is it a list of the best known books of all time (or else 'Gone with the Wind' would be there) nor is it a list of the books he would ahve wanted to have influenced people (or else Winesburg,Ohio and the work of Lewis Carroll...)
Wonder why Mein Kampf isn't on this list? Seems to me to be very influential in the sense that the ideas behind it led directly to WWII.
Unfortunate, but true... As significant and influential as a sledgehammer to a china cabinet.
Unless you want to blame him for "The Manchurian Candidate" and 10 billion lab rats running their mazes in futility.
So9
Moreover, one has to wonder what it is that's being influenced. The Joy Of Sex was something of a watershed in popular culture and a wild best-seller as well, but intellectual it was not. Mein Kampf was certainly influential. So was Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa - the preceding two despite a certain shortage of factual underpinning.
Once again, the list ignored one of the most influential books of my life, but then Naughty Nurses In Bondage never did get any credit as the think-piece it is...
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