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The following are the top 25 most influential books in history, in my opinion. Feel free to add any that you think I have missed or disagree with the order.
25. Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu
24. The Qu’ran
23. Utopia – Thomas More
22. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres - Copernicus
21. The Annalects – Confucius
20. The Institutes – John Calvin
19. The Leviathan – Thomas Hobbes
18. Bondage of the Will – Martin Luther
17. Summa Logicae – William of Ockham
16. Summa Theologica – Thomas Aquinas
15. Physics – Aristotle
14. Either/Or – Soren Kierkegaard
13. The Republic – Plato
12. The Social Contract – Jean Jacque Rousseau
11. On the Genealogy of Morality – Friedrich Nietzsche
10. Two Treatises of Government – John Locke
9. The Origin of the Species – Charles Darwin
8. Novum Organum – Francis Bacon
7. The Prerequisites for Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy – Eduard Bernstein
6. Das Kapital – Karl Marx
5. Discourse on Method – Rene Descartes
4. The City of God – St. Augustine
3. Critique of Pure Reason – Immanuel Kant
2. Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica – Isaac Newton
1. The Bible
I thought to start off I would explain my top ten. For all books, I judged not only by how relevant the work is today but, more importantly, also how influential the book was in shaping subsequent books on the list. Therefore many of the top books may not seem to be more "relevant" but they are placed first because, without them, works that are considered more "relevant" would never have come to be.
ReplyDeleteLocke's Two Treatises has been fundamentally important to most governments in the world today, as it stresses the idea of government existing, by the will of the people, to preserve the people's rights, lives, and property. The Origin of the Species has been influential, not only in biology, but in philosophy also. Evolution has been used by some as a complete explanation of everything. Bacon's work, Novum Organicum, put forth a new method of searching for truth and what Bacon put forward would soon become foundational to the scientific method and the discipline of science itself. Bernsteins Preconditions for Socialism is work not known by many and Marx's Das Kapital is more famous. However, Bernstiens brand of socialism, social democracy, has proven to be far more successful than Marx's and has influenced all of Europe, the United States, Canada, and many other democratic nations. Das Kapital, however, is ranked one higher since it was still foundationally important to Bernstein, though Bernstein deviated greatly from Marx. Discourse on Method is the pivotal book of Western philosophy as it put pure reason above special revelation. Whereas previous works such as Augustine, Aquinas, and Ockham had been informed by the Bible. Descarte, however, claimed to be informed by his reason alone. Virtually all philosophy since has followed his theme. The City of God may seem to many to be undeserving of this third spot, especially for non-Christians, since it is mainly a theological work and Christianity has not had a major impact in most philosophy for the last 2-3 centuries. Nonetheless, it was fundamentally important for more than a millenium after it was written. It has, and still does, have a major impact on the relationship between the church and the state. Kant's Critic of Pure Reason would also be extremely important to modern philosophy. It took into account the criticism of David Hume of pure reason. The result was a turning away from raw empircism and the realization that certain cognitive faculties of the mind influence reason. Newton's Principia is the most important science book ever written. It consolidated the works of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo into one mathematically structured theory of physics. Although Einstein has since made Newton somewhat obsolete, Newton remains important to everday physics and still much of Einstein is built on the foundation of Newton. Principia would also be fundmanetal in shaping the view of the universe from living being or spirit into machine. Finally, the most important work is the Bible. The Bible is the most influential book in the Western world since Constantine in the 4th c. AD. It has influenced many of the books on this list is the primary influence to several. Roughly a third of the world's population adhere to the religion that comes from the Bible.
WOW.......I'm amazed! It's nice to know all
ReplyDeletemy long hours of reading to you as a child
paid off :) I didn't see "Goodnight Moon"
on the list though :)
You seemed to focus on mostly "positive effect" books on western civilization. I think you're missing a couple important one that has influenced world civilizations as a whole. In no particular order, you're missing:
ReplyDelete1) The Federalist Papers (as a collected work) - Hamilton, Madison, et. al.
2) Quotations from Chairman Mao (The Little Red Book) - Mao
3) Upanishad
4) On the Republic - Cicero
5) I Ching (instead of Tao Te Ching)
6) De Rerum Natura - Lucretius
7) Parallel Lives - Plutarch
8) Meditations - Marcus Aurelis
9) Buke Shohatto - Tokugawa Ieyasu
10) Kojiki
Yes the Federalist Papers is very very true. De Rerum Natura by Lucretius is also very important. That should have been on my list. I considered The Little Red Book but, as a whole, I tried to stay away from the last century since not enough time has passed for the books to to show that they have had more than a passing impact, no matter how great that impact was. Some of the Asian books I am not as familiar with, unfortunately. I just knew that the Tao Te Ching was the key work of Taoism and the Annalects of Confucianism which were immensely important in forming Vietnam, China, Korea, and Japan (though the Japanese wouldn't admit it). At some point I will probably make a longer list (50?) that include more books.
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