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100 most influential books of all time
1998
| Martin Semoyr Smith
Posted on 07/27/2004 12:17:17 PM PDT by Borges
The I Ching. c. 1500 B.C.. The Old Testament. c. 1500 B.C.. Homer The Iliad. The Odyssey. 9th century B.C.. The Upanishads. c. 700-400 B.CE. Lao-Tzu The Way and Its Power. 3rd century B.C.. The Avesta. c. 500 B.C.. Confucius Analects. c. 5th-4th century B.C.. Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War. 5th century B.CE. Hippocrates Works. c. 400 B.C.. Aristotle Works. 4th century B.C. Herodotus History. 4th century B.C.. Plato The Republic. c. 380 B.C.. Euclid Elements. c. 280 B.C.. The Dhammapada. c. 252 B.C.. Virgil The Aeneid. 70-19 B.C.. Lucretius On the Nature of Reality. c. 55 B.C.. Philo of Alexandria Allegorical Expositions of the Holy Laws. 1st century The New Testament. c. 64-110 . Plutarch Lives. c. 50-120 . Cornelius Tacitus Annals, From the Death of the Divine Augustus. c.120 The Gospel of Truth (The Valentinian Speculation). c.1st century Marcus Aurelius Meditations. 167 C.E. Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism. c. 150-210 Plotinus Enneads. 3d century Augustine of Hippo Confessions. c. 400. The Koran. 7th century . Moses Maimonides Guide for the Perplexed. 1190 The Kabbalah (Quabala). 12th century . Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae. 1266-1273 Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy. 1321 Desiderius Erasmus In Praise of Folly. 1509 Niccolo Machiavelli he Prince. 1532 Martin Luther On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. 1520 Francois Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel. 1534, 1532. John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion. 1536 Nicolaus Copernicus On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs. 1543 Michel Eyquem de Montaigne Essays. 1580 Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote. Part I, 1605; Part II, 1615 Johannes Kepler The Harmony of the World. 1619 Francis Bacon Novum Organum. 1620 William Shakespeare The First Folio. 1623 Galileo Galilei Dialogue Concerning Two New Chief World Systems. 1632 Rene Desartes Discourse on Method. 1637 Thomas Hobbes Leviathan. 1651 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz Works. 1663-1716 Blaise Pascal Pensees. 1670 Baruch de Spinoza. Ethics. 1677 John Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress. 1678-1684 Isaac Newton Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. 1687 John Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 1689 George Berkeley The Principles of Human Knowledge. 1740, rev 1734 Giambattista Vico The New Science. 1725, rev 1730, 1744 David Hume A Treatise of Human Nature. 1739-1740 Denis Diderot, ed. The Encyclopedia. 1751-1772 Samuel Johnson A Dictionary of the English Language. 1755 Francois-Marie de Voltaire Candide. 1759 Thomas Paine Common Sense. 1776 Adam Smith An Enquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 1776 Edward Gibbon The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 1776-87 Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason. 1781 rev 1787 Jean-Jacques Rousseau Confessions. 1781 Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France. 1790 Mary Wollstonecraft Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 1792 William Godwin An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. 1793 Thomas Robert Malthus An Essay on the Principle of Population. 1798 rev 1803 George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit. 1807 Arnold Schopenhauer The World as Will and Idea. 1819 Auguste Comte Course in the Positivist Philosophy. 1830-1842 Carl Marie von Clausewitz On War. 1832 Soren Kierkegaard Either/Or. 1843 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Manifesto of the Communist Party. 1848 Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience. 1849 Charles Darwin The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. 1859 John Stuart Mill On Liberty. 1859 Herbert Spencer First Principles. 1862 Gregor Mendel "Experiments With Plant Hybrids." 1866 Leo Tolstoy War and Peace. 1868-1869 James Clerk Maxwell Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. 1873 Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spake Zarathustra. 1883-1885 Sigmund Freud The Interpretation of Dreams. 1900 William James Pragmatism. 1908 Albert Einstein Relativity. 1916 Vilfredo Pareto The Mind and Society. 1916 Carl Gustav Jung Psychological Types. 1921 Martin Buber I and Thou. 1923 Franz Kafka The Trial. 1925 Karl Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery. 1934 John Maynard Keynes The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. 1936 Jean-Paul Sartre Being and Nothingness. 1943 Friedrich von Hayek The Road to Serfdom. 1944 Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex. 1948 Norbert Wiener Cybernetics. 1948, rev 1961 George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four. 1949 George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. 1950 Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations. 1953 Noam Chomsky Syntactic Structures. 1957 Thomas Samuel Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 1962 rev 1970 Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique. 1963 Mao Zedong Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung. 1966 B. F. Skinner Beyond Freedom and Dignity. 1971
TOPICS: Philosophy
KEYWORDS: readinglist; topten
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In 1998 British literary scholar Martin Seymour Smith complied what he felt were the 100 most influential books of all time on human thought and action. He listed them in chronological order:
1
posted on
07/27/2004 12:17:19 PM PDT
by
Borges
To: Borges
I really need to learn to use HTML. Sorry about the spacing or lack thereof.
2
posted on
07/27/2004 12:19:07 PM PDT
by
Borges
To: Borges
maybe you should add "html for dummies" to the book list?? :)
3
posted on
07/27/2004 12:22:30 PM PDT
by
kjam22
(What you win them by, is what you win them to)
To: Borges
"Lao-Tzu The Way and Its Power(Tao Te Ching) 3rd century B.C." thank you very much
4
posted on
07/27/2004 12:23:52 PM PDT
by
laotzu
To: Borges
I'd replace Tacitus'
Annals with Polybius'
Histories, because Polybius was such a great influence on the architects of the U. S. Constitution. Insofar as this "100 Most Important Books" has any meaning, anyway. At least he didn't rank them in order of importance.
Incidentally, what a magnificent year 1776 was, to see all three of The Wealth of Nations, the Declaration of Independence, and The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, especially all published in English!
To: Borges
How exactly do you think one person's fairly old list of books he considers influential qualify as breaking news?
It also doesn't take more than a glance to see that he is a leftist, despite Hayek.
6
posted on
07/27/2004 12:25:47 PM PDT
by
blanknoone
(The NAACP --->NAADP National Association for the Advancement of the Democrat Party.)
To: Borges
Noticeably absent is
Atlas Shrugged? Like it or not, it was and still is a tremendously influential contribution of intellectual literature and one of the few distictly American works on the list.
Would not the Federalists Papers, be another notable contribution?
7
posted on
07/27/2004 12:25:50 PM PDT
by
Mr.Atos
To: Borges
That sure is a lot of dead white males.
To: Borges
Not reading until formatted...
9
posted on
07/27/2004 12:26:07 PM PDT
by
StoneColdGOP
(Nothing is Bush's fault... Nothing is Bush's fault... Nothing is Bush's fault...)
To: Borges
- The I Ching. c. 1500 B.C..
- The Old Testament. c. 1500 B.C..
- Homer The Iliad.
- The Odyssey. 9th century B.C..
- The Upanishads. c. 700-400 B.CE.
- Lao-Tzu The Way and Its Power. 3rd century B.C..
- The Avesta. c. 500 B.C..
- Confucius Analects. c. 5th-4th century B.C..
- Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War. 5th century B.CE.
- Hippocrates Works. c. 400 B.C..
- Aristotle Works. 4th century B.C.
- Herodotus History. 4th century B.C..
- Plato The Republic. c. 380 B.C..
- Euclid Elements. c. 280 B.C..
- The Dhammapada. c. 252 B.C..
- Virgil The Aeneid. 70-19 B.C..
- Lucretius On the Nature of Reality. c. 55 B.C..
- Philo of Alexandria Allegorical Expositions of the Holy Laws. 1st century
- The New Testament. c. 64-110 .
- Plutarch Lives. c. 50-120 .
- Cornelius Tacitus Annals, From the Death of the Divine Augustus. c.120
- The Gospel of Truth (The Valentinian Speculation). c.1st century
- Marcus Aurelius Meditations. 167 C.E.
- Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism. c. 150-210
- Plotinus Enneads. 3d century
- Augustine of Hippo Confessions. c. 400.
- The Koran. 7th century .
- Moses Maimonides Guide for the Perplexed. 1190
- The Kabbalah (Quabala). 12th century .
- Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae. 1266-1273
- Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy. 1321
- Desiderius Erasmus In Praise of Folly. 1509
- Niccolo Machiavelli he Prince. 1532
- Martin Luther On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. 1520
- Francois Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel. 1534, 1532.
- John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion. 1536
- Nicolaus Copernicus On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs. 1543
- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne Essays. 1580
- Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote. Part I, 1605; Part II, 1615
- Johannes Kepler The Harmony of the World. 1619
- Francis Bacon Novum Organum. 1620
- William Shakespeare The First Folio. 1623
- Galileo Galilei Dialogue Concerning Two New Chief World Systems. 1632
- Rene Desartes Discourse on Method. 1637
- Thomas Hobbes Leviathan. 1651
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz Works. 1663-1716
- Blaise Pascal Pensees. 1670
- Baruch de Spinoza. Ethics. 1677
- John Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress. 1678-1684
- Isaac Newton Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. 1687
- John Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 1689
- George Berkeley The Principles of Human Knowledge. 1740, rev 1734
- Giambattista Vico The New Science. 1725, rev 1730, 1744
- David Hume A Treatise of Human Nature. 1739-1740
- Denis Diderot, ed. The Encyclopedia. 1751-1772
- Samuel Johnson A Dictionary of the English Language. 1755
- Francois-Marie de Voltaire Candide. 1759 Thomas Paine Common Sense. 1776
- Adam Smith An Enquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 1776
- Edward Gibbon The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 1776-87
- Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason. 1781 rev 1787
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau Confessions. 1781
- Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France. 1790
- Mary Wollstonecraft Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 1792
- William Godwin An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. 1793
- Thomas Robert Malthus An Essay on the Principle of Population. 1798 rev 1803
- George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit. 1807
- Arnold Schopenhauer The World as Will and Idea. 1819
- Auguste Comte Course in the Positivist Philosophy. 1830-1842
- Carl Marie von Clausewitz On War. 1832
- Soren Kierkegaard Either/Or. 1843
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Manifesto of the Communist Party. 1848
- Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience. 1849
- Charles Darwin The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. 1859
- John Stuart Mill On Liberty. 1859
- Herbert Spencer First Principles. 1862
- Gregor Mendel "Experiments With Plant Hybrids." 1866
- Leo Tolstoy War and Peace. 1868-1869
- James Clerk Maxwell Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. 1873
- Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spake Zarathustra. 1883-1885
- Sigmund Freud The Interpretation of Dreams. 1900
- William James Pragmatism. 1908
- Albert Einstein Relativity. 1916
- Vilfredo Pareto The Mind and Society. 1916
- Carl Gustav Jung Psychological Types. 1921
- Martin Buber I and Thou. 1923
- Franz Kafka The Trial. 1925
- Karl Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery. 1934
- John Maynard Keynes The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. 1936
- Jean-Paul Sartre Being and Nothingness. 1943
- Friedrich von Hayek The Road to Serfdom. 1944
- Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex. 1948
- Norbert Wiener Cybernetics. 1948, rev 1961
- George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four. 1949
- George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. 1950
- Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations. 1953
- Noam Chomsky Syntactic Structures. 1957
- Thomas Samuel Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 1962 rev 1970
- Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique. 1963
- Mao Zedong Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung. 1966
- B. F. Skinner Beyond Freedom and Dignity. 1971
Atlas Shrugged is missing
10
posted on
07/27/2004 12:27:26 PM PDT
by
BufordP
(FLASH! Bush rumored to drop Cheney from ticket. Log Cabin Republicans respond: "WE WANT DICK!")
To: blanknoone
I thought I posted it in the philosphy section. I'm new cut me some slack. :-)
11
posted on
07/27/2004 12:28:24 PM PDT
by
Borges
To: Borges
Dude! I just checked the "View Source" option on my toolbar. You didn't even try to list them.
Here's a shortcut: use < PRE> to start, then put the list, neatly formatted so its readable, and then do </PRE> Okay?
TS
12
posted on
07/27/2004 12:29:40 PM PDT
by
Tanniker Smith
(My favorite film genre are mockumentaries like "This is Spinal Tap" or "Bowling for Columbine")
To: Borges
Oops! I screwed up at #57.
13
posted on
07/27/2004 12:29:52 PM PDT
by
BufordP
(FLASH! Bush rumored to drop Cheney from ticket. Log Cabin Republicans respond: "WE WANT DICK!")
To: BufordP
Thanks.
I can do without Chomsky, otherwise a good list.
Time to add to the home library...
14
posted on
07/27/2004 12:30:28 PM PDT
by
StoneColdGOP
(Nothing is Bush's fault... Nothing is Bush's fault... Nothing is Bush's fault...)
To: BufordP
In the introduction to the book he calls Ayn Rand's work 'tawdry and third rate'.
15
posted on
07/27/2004 12:31:02 PM PDT
by
Borges
To: Mr.Atos
Thanks for looking for me. Atlas Shrugged was Ranked number 2 next to the Bible in another survey.
To: BufordP
Atlas Shrugged is missing.
My first thought.
Tragic
17
posted on
07/27/2004 12:32:59 PM PDT
by
WhiteGuy
(Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...)
To: BufordP; Borges
Bravo, BufordP!... on both counts. And welcome aboard Borges. We're a salty bunch at times, like old codgers fishing from a dock. But, you'll fit right in.
Look at the bright side. At least you weren't zotted !
18
posted on
07/27/2004 12:33:20 PM PDT
by
Mr.Atos
To: StoneColdGOP
To: bigjoesaddle
Where was the Baltimore Cathechism?
20
posted on
07/27/2004 12:33:59 PM PDT
by
wtc911
(6 Flags Dancing Guy is Urkel.....wanna bet?)
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