The 100 Most Influential Books... | Buy

What are the one hundred most influential books ever written? Those works that have radically altered the course of civilization, whether they have embodied the religions practiced by millions (the Bible, the Koran), achieved the pinnacle of artistic expression (the Iliad and the Odyssey, Shakespeare's plays), pointed the way to scientific discovery of enormous consequence (Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity), radically changed the thought of man about his very nature (Freud's A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis and The Interpretation of Dreams, Hume's Treatise of Human Nature), or forever altered the global political landscape (Plato's Republic, Machiavelli's Prince)?

Never before has one book attempted to identify and analyze the one hundred works that have most influenced human history. For each one (listed in chronological order), author Martin Seymour-Smith provides:
-- Historical background and overview, setting each text in its time
-- Little-known facts about the author and the creation of the work

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

(1)

PHOTO CREDITS

xii

(1)

INTRODUCTION

xiii

1. The I Ching

(5)

2. The Old Testament

(5)

3. The Iliad and The Odyssey

(6)

Homer

4. The Upanishads

(5)

5. The Way and Its Power

(5)

Lao-tzu

6. The Avesta

(6)

7. Analects

(5)

Confucius

8. History of the Peloponnesian War,

(4)

Thucydides

9. Works

(3)

Hippocrates

10. Works

(6)

Aristotle

11. History

(5)

Herodotus

12. The Republic,

(8)

Plato

13. Elements

(5)

Euclid

14. The Dhammapada

(5)

15. The Aeneid

(4)

Virgil

16. On the Nature of Reality

(5)

Lucretius

17. Allegorical Expositions of the Holy Laws

(3)

Philo of Alexandria

18. The New Testament

(4)

19. Lives,

(4)

Plutarch

20. Annals, From the Death of the Divine Augustus

(4)

Cornelius Tacitus

21. The Gospel of Truth

100

(7)

22. Meditations

107

(5)

Marcus Aurelius

23. Outlines of Pyrrhonism,

112

(4)

Sextus Empiricus

24. Enneads

116

(5)

Plotinus

25 Confessions

121

(6)

Augustine of Hippo

26. The Koran

127

(5)

27. Guide for the Perplexed,

132

(3)

Moses Maimonides

28. The Kabbalah

135

(5)

29. Summa Theologiae,

140

(4)

Thomas Aquinas

30. The Divine Comedy,

144

(5)

Dante Alighieri

31. In Praise of Folly,

149

(5)

Desiderius Erasmus

32. The Prince

154

(5)

Niccolo Machiavelli

33. On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church,

159

(5)

Martin Luther

34. Gargantua and Pantagruel,

164

(4)

Francois Rabelais

35. Institutes of the Christian Religion

168

(4)

John Calvin

36. On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs

172

(4)

Nicolaus Copernicus

37. Essays

176

(5)

Michael Eyquem de Montaigne

38. Don Quixote, Parts I and II

181

(5)

Miguel de Cervantes

39. The Harmony of the World

186

(4)

Johannes Kepler

40. Novum Organum

190

(4)

Francis Bacon

41. The First Folio

194

(5)

William Shakespeare

42. Dialogue Concerning Two New Chief World Systems

199

(4)

Galileo Galilei

43. Discourse on Method

203

(8)

Rene Descartes

44. Leviathan

211

(4)

Thomas Hobbes

45. Works

215

(6)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

46. Pensees

221

(6)

Blaise Pascal

47. Ethics

227

(5)

Baruch de Spinoza

48. Pilgrim's Progress

232

(5)

John Bunyan

49. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

237

(5)

Isaac Newton

50. Essay Concerning Human Understanding

242

(4)

John Locke

51. The Principles of Human Knowledge

246

(5)

George Berkeley

52. The New Science

251

(5)

Giambattista Vico

53. A Treatise of Human Nature

256

(4)

David Hume

54. The Encyclopedia

260

(5)

Denis Diderot

55. A Dictionary of the English Language

265

(5)

Samuel Johnson

56. Candide

270

(4)

Francois-Marie de Voltaire

57. Common Sense

274

(4)

Thomas Paine

58. An Enquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

278

(3)

Adam Smith

59. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

281

(5)

Edward Gibbon

60. Critique of Pure Reason

286

(4)

Immanuel Kant

61. Confessions

290

(6)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

62. Reflections on the Revolution in France

296

(4)

Edmund Burke

63. Vindication of the Rights of Woman

300

(4)

Mary Wollstonecraft

64. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice

304

(5)

William Godwin

65. An Essay on the Principle of Population

309

(4)

Thomas Robert Malthus

66. Phenomenology of Spirit

313

(6)

George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

67. The World as Will and Idea

319

(5)

Arthur Schopenhauer

68. Course in the Positivist Philosophy

324

(4)

Auguste Comte

69. On War

328

(5)

Carl Marie von Clausewitz

70. Either/Or

333

(5)

Soren Kierkegaard

71. The Manifesto of the Communist Party

338

(5)

Karl Marx

Friedrich Engels

72. "Civil Disobedience,"

343

(5)

Henry David Thoreau

73. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection

348

(4)

Charles Darwin

74. On Liberty

352

(4)

John Stuart Mill

75. First Principles

356

(5)

Herbert Spencer

76. "Experiments With Plant Hybrids,"

361

(4)

Gregor Mendel

77. War and Peace

365

(5)

Leo Tolstoy

78. Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism

370

(5)

James Clerk Maxwell

79. Thus Spake Zarathustra

375

(5)

Friedrich Nietzsche

80. The Interpretation of Dreams

380

(5)

Sigmund Freud

81. Pragmatism

385

(4)

William James

82. Relativity

389

(6)

Albert Einstein

83. The Mind and Society

395

(5)

Vilfredo Pareto

84. Psychological Types

400

(4)

Carl Gustav Jung

85. I and Thou

404

(4)

Martin Buber

86. The Trial

408

(6)

Franz Kafka

87. The Logic of Scientific Discovery

414

(4)

Karl Popper

88. The General Theory of Employment Interest, and Money

418

(4)

John Maynard Keynes

89. Being and Nothingness

422

(5)

Jean-Paul Sartre

90. The Road to Serfdom

427

(6)

Friedrich von Hayek

91. The Second Sex

433

(5)

Simone de Beauvoir

92. Cybernetics

438

(4)

Norbert Wiener

93. Nineteen Eighty-Four

442

(5)

George Orwell

94. Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

447

(6)

George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff

95. Philosphical Investigations

453

(5)

Ludwig Wittgenstein

96. Syntactic Structures

458

(5)

Noam Chomsky

97. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

463

(5)

T.S. Kuhn

98. The Feminine Mystique

468

(3)

Betty Friedan

99. Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung

471

(5)

Mao Zedong

100. Beyond Freedom and Dignity

476

(5)

B.F. Skinner

AUTHORS, TITLES, AND PUBLISHERS OF THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS EVER WRITTEN

481

(4)

INDEX

485

Supplemental Materials

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