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Thread: 36 Books That Changed the World

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    Default 36 Books That Changed the World

    I do not claim expertise or knowledge of all of these, but two sentimental favorites are The Histories by Herodotus and Solzhenitsyn's Day in the Life. Interesting to see Francis Bacon represented, since I generally think of him as being totally under-rated and not given his full due as (arguably) the godfather of the Enlightenment.

    36 Books That Changed the World

    Certain works of literature, history, science, philosophy, political theory and religion offer powerful examples of how books can spark revolutions, birth great religions, spur scientific advancements, shape world economies, teach us new ways of thinking, and much more.

    1. The Epic of Gilgamesh
    2. Homer's The Odyssey
    3. The Bhagavad Gita
    4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War
    5. Confucius's The Analects
    6. Herodotus' Histories
    7. Plato's The Republic
    8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
    9. Ovid's Metamorphoses
    10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations
    11. St. Augustine's Confessions
    12. The Koran
    13. Fibonacci's The Liber Abaci
    14. Dante's The Divine Comedy
    15. Machiavelli's The Prince
    16. Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs
    17. Shakespeare's Hamlet
    18. Cervantes' Don Quixote
    19. The King James Bible
    20. Francis Bacon's The New Organum
    21. Denis Diderot's & Jean le Rond d'Alembert's The Encyclopedie
    22. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language
    23. Thomas Paine's Common Sense
    24. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations
    25. Madison's, Hamilton's, & Jay's The Federalist Papers
    26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
    27. Mary Wolstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
    28. Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America
    29. Marx's & Engel's The Communist Manifesto
    30. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin
    31. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species
    32. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty
    33. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
    34. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time
    35. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
    36. Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...nged-the-world

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    Surprising how many I have read.
    He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death. Thomas Paine

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    Quote Originally Posted by kudzu View Post
    Surprising how many I have read.
    I salute you!

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    Surprising how many I have NOT read.

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    I have read from about a dozen of them but only a few from cover to cover. Several I tried to read but could not because I found them archaic, extremely boring and of little relevance in the modern world and very over rated. Those being the King James Bible. The Koran and most over rated of all anything by Shakespeare.

    I’ve heard his plays called universal themes. I call them boring formulaic, soap operas with common and unimaginative themes. Shakespeares greatest accomplishment in history is turning off millions of school children from reading.

    Truth is quite a few of these books suck but are on the list not because they are great reads but because some authority says they are.
    You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic!

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    Quote Originally Posted by kudzu View Post
    Surprising how many I have read.
    I can only score 23 - and some for those only dipped into! I think there ought to be a lot more novels, and I must admit I think my own feelings are much more affected by poems! Educated people, I'm afraid, are at one in not giving a twopenny about what half-educated children think of ill-taught Shakespeare! 'The Merchant of Venice', though, is drear!
    Last edited by iolo; 01-19-2019 at 06:31 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mott the Hoople View Post
    I have read from about a dozen of them but only a few from cover to cover. Several I tried to read but could not because I found them archaic, extremely boring and of little relevance in the modern world and very over rated. Those being the King James Bible. The Koran and most over rated of all anything by Shakespeare.

    I’ve heard his plays called universal themes. I call them boring formulaic, soap operas with common and unimaginative themes. Shakespeares greatest accomplishment in history is turning off millions of school children from reading.

    Truth is quite a few of these books suck but are on the list not because they are great reads but because some authority says they are.
    I mostly agree.

    That is why the premise of the thread is 36 books "that changed the world", not 36 books that made for "entertaining reading".

    I would rather read anything by Michael Crichton than read Canterbury Tales - there is no bloody way I am ever going to comprehend the Anglo Saxon-esque Middle English of Chaucer. I would not even attempt Beowulf, apparently written in inscrutable Old English. But, recognizing their historical significance, I would totally listen to a lecture from a professor of literature on Canterbury Tales or Beowulf.

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    Quote Originally Posted by iolo View Post
    I can only score 23 - and some for those only dipped into! I think there ought to be a lot more novels, and I must admit I think my own feelings are much more affected by poems! Educated people, I'm afraid, are at one in not giving as twopenny about what half-educated children think of ill-taught Shakespeare! 'The Merchant of Venice', though, is drear!
    It was torture to try to read Shakespeare in high school. And even though I still would never attempt to read his plays, I have learned to really appreciate Shakespearean performances. Not on par with the violence and gore of Walking Dead, but still a nice change from the mayhem of the zombie apocalypse!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    It was torture to try to read Shakespeare in high school. And even though I still would never attempt to read his plays, I have learned to really appreciate Shakespearean performances. Not on par with the violence and gore of Walking Dead, but still a nice change from the mayhem of the zombie apocalypse!
    Personally I would replace Shakespeare with Dickens. Dickens novels did change the world. Prior to Dickens novels were just a fancy for the wealthy. Dickens popularized the form of literature all around the world to being one of the most, in not the most, popular form of literature today.

    Shakespeare more properly belongs to the theater. He wrote soap operas to sell laundry detergent to housewives.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mott the Hoople View Post
    I have read from about a dozen of them but only a few from cover to cover. Several I tried to read but could not because I found them archaic, extremely boring and of little relevance in the modern world and very over rated. Those being the King James Bible. The Koran and most over rated of all anything by Shakespeare.

    I’ve heard his plays called universal themes. I call them boring formulaic, soap operas with common and unimaginative themes. Shakespeares greatest accomplishment in history is turning off millions of school children from reading.

    Truth is quite a few of these books suck but are on the list not because they are great reads but because some authority says they are.
    Yeah to some of what you said here, Mott, but NO to the comments on Shakespeare.

    The "common and unimaginative themes" you speak of...were not common and unimaginative back when he wrote them. You see them that way because the general themes he helped to invent (with Marlowe) have been copied to death by later authors.

    Most of today's soap operas and most of what comes out of Hollywood...derives from themes those two originated or expanded.

    I was lucky enough to be stationed in England for two years while in the USAF and saw many of the plays performed by stellar companies. Ya actually get to the point where you understand what is being said...and it makes sense.

    His quotes in Bartlett's cover 65 pages.

    But...to each his/her own.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Frank Apisa View Post
    Yeah to some of what you said here, Mott, but NO to the comments on Shakespeare.

    The "common and unimaginative themes" you speak of...were not common and unimaginative back when he wrote them. You see them that way because the general themes he helped to invent (with Marlowe) have been copied to death by later authors.

    Most of today's soap operas and most of what comes out of Hollywood...derives from themes those two originated or expanded.

    I was lucky enough to be stationed in England for two years while in the USAF and saw many of the plays performed by stellar companies. Ya actually get to the point where you understand what is being said...and it makes sense.

    His quotes in Bartlett's cover 65 pages.

    But...to each his/her own.
    I really enjoy good performances of Shakespeare. Reading the plays in high school was torture.

    I also think there is a major difference between seeing the Middle English of the 16 century written on paper, and hearing it orally articulated by a talented Shakesperean actor.

    To me, something about hearing the spoken word - in the way it was intended, with the correct pacing, tone, and inflection - makes it a lot easier to comprehend that seeing a bunch of archaic Anglo Saxon words written on paper.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Frank Apisa View Post
    Yeah to some of what you said here, Mott, but NO to the comments on Shakespeare.

    The "common and unimaginative themes" you speak of...were not common and unimaginative back when he wrote them. You see them that way because the general themes he helped to invent (with Marlowe) have been copied to death by later authors.

    Most of today's soap operas and most of what comes out of Hollywood...derives from themes those two originated or expanded.

    I was lucky enough to be stationed in England for two years while in the USAF and saw many of the plays performed by stellar companies. Ya actually get to the point where you understand what is being said...and it makes sense.

    His quotes in Bartlett's cover 65 pages.

    But...to each his/her own.
    I appreciate your point of view but I'm just saying that the themes that Shakespeare wrote about were common themes that have been around humanity forever long before Shakespeare. You'll find many of the great Latin and Greek playwrights of antiquety who wrote pretty much the same schlock. The main difference was Shakespeare wrote them in English.
    You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mott the Hoople View Post
    Personally I would replace Shakespeare with Dickens. Dickens novels did change the world. Prior to Dickens novels were just a fancy for the wealthy. Dickens popularized the form of literature all around the world to being one of the most, in not the most, popular form of literature today.

    Shakespeare more properly belongs to the theater. He wrote soap operas to sell laundry detergent to housewives.

    Dickens seems like an eminently plausible choice to be on a list of the worlds most important books.


    You know what else I realized? Missing from this list is Newton's Principia Mathematica. That is an egregious oversight, since it was a watershed moment in western history, almost unprecedented in its influence on modern intellectual thought - and the very foundation of the Enlightenment.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    It was torture to try to read Shakespeare in high school. And even though I still would never attempt to read his plays, I have learned to really appreciate Shakespearean performances. Not on par with the violence and gore of Walking Dead, but still a nice change from the mayhem of the zombie apocalypse!
    Funny you say that, had the same experience, even in college. My wife recently wanted to read Shakespeare but knew she wouldn't finish, so she found the clip notes in an old book store that we all used years ago and not only enjoyed them but now runs the category on Jeopardy

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    If listing books that changed the world Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica should be high on the list

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