100 most influential books of all time

1998 | Martin Semoyr Smith

[fso301]

Clearly an oversight on the authors part not making mention of Guy Sajer "The Forgotten Soldier" 1965 anywhere in there.

[Borges]

I showed this list to the head of the English department at my univ. and one of the first things he said was 'where the heck's Boethius?' :)

[DannyTN]

They put I Ching before the Bible????

Useless list.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Darn right!

[Borges]

If the Exodus is dated to the 14th century BC as it is by most historians and theologians and the first five books of the Bible were first written down by Moses as is thought, wouldn't that mean the I Ching predates it?

[Billthedrill]

David Ricardo might have made the list as well. Tough to decide on only 100, actually - you have to leave out some whose influence was derivative, through other books, and include some that have a notoriety disproportionate to their actual influence - I'd place Mao's Little Red Book under that category. I have a copy (bought in Kowloon during the bad old days) and frankly, it's trite, silly, and could be said to influence anything because it seems to say almost anything.

I have something of a soft spot for books that weren't even translated into English until very late - The Thousand Nights And One Night for example. Sir Richard Burton's wife actually burnt his original translations for obscenity... She was cursed as a thoughtless Victorian prude until somebody figured out just how obscene they really were...

[Borges]

When you're translated by everyone from King Alfred to Chaucer you've held some influence I would say.

[Truthsearcher]

I think almost all of the stuff listed from 1900, with the exception of Relativity, are overstated.

It's the inherent bias that because they are closer in time to us, they appear to be more important. We have no historical perspective on them. But truly influential works will withstand the test of time, and their influence reverberate for centuries if not millenniums. Mao and Friedan? Laughable is the only way to describe them belonging on a list with Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, and Aquinas.

[Calvin Locke]

What makes a book "third rate" as opposed to "second rate"?

My suggestions:

Third rate = Concept, story, or information is presented so poorly, that you can't finish the book.

Second rate = Something's amiss, but you can finish the book, either for entertainment value, or some information.

[ASA Vet]

#7 The Avesta is a collection of earlier writings going back to the seventeen Gatas (sacred songs) composed by Zoraster. The writings are in an ancient language called the Old Avestan. These writings should be in the #1 spot, as they were modified into the latter written Old Testament.

[ShadowDancer]

I've read an awful lot of books and to this day Atlas Shrugged is still, without a doubt, the most influential one I've read. The beginning was a struggle, the meat of it was like breathing life itself into my soul and reaching the end was half an awakening and half a wake wishing it wasn't ending. And no, I'm not usually melodramatic about this kind of thing. It was that good.

[RadioAstronomer]

ping

[Mycroft Holmes]

Googled "Ayn Rand" as per your suggestion and got 200K hits. Then I googled "Sun Tsu" at 100K hits. I then recalled that there are several spellings for the author from 2000 BC and googled "Art of War" coming up with 9 million hits.

This nearly four thousand year old work is studied today at West Point and the Naval War College. My dear wife, who sells real estate, is reading it for the fourth time and still taking notes. She also bought another five copies for coworkers and our teenager.

I would submit for consideration that the absence of Sun Tsu's _Art of War_ makes this list highly suspect.

[Petronski]

Mary Mother of God! My new glasses aren't ready yet.

[RadioAstronomer]

ping

[P.O.E.]

Must be an oversight - the list forgot to include:

and

[Truthsearcher]

I would complete agree that the Art of War belongs.

Lik I said I would take out everything on the list post 1900, and put in books like Art of War and John Locke's Second Treatise on Government.

[Borges]

In his entry on Clausewitz he suggests that this update on Sun Tzu's work has had the greater influence.

[R. Scott]

I’ve actually read only 14 in their entirety - and reread them.
The Old Testament
Homer The Iliad. The Odyssey
History of the Peloponnesian War
Herodotus History
Plato The Republic
Virgil The Aeneid
The New Testament
Plutarch Lives
Cornelius Tacitus Annals
The Divine Comedy
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The Origin of Species
War and Peace
Nineteen Eighty-Four
I’ve read parts of a couple dozen others on the list - but wading through The Upanishads, Augustine of Hippo Confessions, or Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae is a bit more than I can handle. Maybe when I reach the point where I have absolutely nothing else to do …

[Doctor Stochastic]

Skinner, Chomsky, and Kuhn do seem to be waning in influence though.