what books have changed the course of the world

by Prof. Alejandrin Bailey I 4 min read

8 Books Lost To History That Could Have Changed The Course Of The World

  1. The Gospel of Eve by Anonymous Why is it important: This book is said to be a documentation of the most sexually...
  2. On Sphere-Making By Archimedes Why is it important: This book would have probably helped solve many a riddle that the...
  3. The 'Rare Books' wing at the 'House of Wisdom' Why is...

Top 25 Books that Changed History by Miriam TuliaoJanuary 30, 2014
  • 1984 by George Orwell.
  • Aesop's Fables by Aesop.
  • The Analects of Confucius by Confucius.
  • The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
  • King James Bible.
  • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Alexander Brown.
Jan 28, 2014

Full Answer

How many books have changed history?

36 Books That Changed the World pulls together the best lectures from our library of courses devoted to showcasing books that have had an impact on world history. Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life focuses on great writings throughout history and how we can put to use in a moral and ethical life.

What are the most influential books of all time?

Aug 07, 2015 · Ten books that changed the world. From Euclid’s Elements to Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, and from Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex to Shakespeare First Folio … 10 authors choose ...

How did the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the world change?

Dec 16, 2014 · The books that shaped the world. ... helped us come up with a list of the books that changed the course of history. ... The best-selling book has never gone out of print and has been translated ...

How did the book The Great Gatsby change the world?

No book has changed our understanding of ourselves more than Darwin's Origin of Species. It caused a sensation on its first day of publication in 1859 …

What is the most influential book in the world?

The BibleThe Bible has been named the world's most influential book in a nationwide survey for the Folio Society. The YouGov poll asked people to rank books from a list of 30 works chosen by The Folio Society, according to their significance in today's world.Nov 13, 2014

What book changed the world?

9 novels that changed the worldUncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe.The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell.The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.1984 by George Orwell.More items...•Mar 3, 2016

What are some books that have made a major difference throughout history?

30 Books That Changed The Course Of History"Aesop's Fables" by Aesop. ... "The Analects of Confucius" by Confucius. ... "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank. ... "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu. ... "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Alexander Brown. ... "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels.More items...•Dec 15, 2014

What is the most life changing book?

The Most Life-Changing BooksThe Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. ... Mindset by Carol Dweck. ... Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. ... How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. ... The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. ... Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. ... The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. ... Start With Why by Simon Sinek.More items...•Jan 4, 2022

What is the greatest book of all time?

12 Novels Considered the “Greatest Book Ever Written”Anna Karenina. Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina. ... To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird. ... The Great Gatsby. F. ... One Hundred Years of Solitude. Gabriel García Márquez. ... A Passage to India. E.M. Forster. ... Invisible Man. Ralph Ellison. ... Don Quixote. Don Quixote. ... Beloved. Toni Morrison.More items...

What is the most important book to read?

The Greatest Books of All Time1 . In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. ... 2 . Ulysses by James Joyce. ... 3 . Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. ... 4 . One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. ... 5 . The Great Gatsby by F. ... 6 . Moby Dick by Herman Melville. ... 7 . War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. ... 8 .More items...

Who has the most books written about them?

By 1980, according to The Guinness Book of World Records, Muhammad Ali had surpassed Lincoln, Christ, and Napoleon as the most written-about person in history. My shelves hold no fewer than seven biographies of Cassius Clay- Muhammad Ali, and that's not counting his own ghostwritten bio, The Greatest.Jun 21, 1991

What was the most influential novel or fictional piece written in American history?

(4) Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Considered by many scholars as the most influential book in American history, this compelling story about a slave family stirred the Northern public to sympathize with the enslaved.Apr 18, 2010

What was the first book ever written?

The Epic of GilgameshThe first ever books The first book ever written that we know of is The Epic of Gilgamesh: a mythical retelling of an important political figure from history.Dec 3, 2019

What fiction book changed your life?

25 Fictional Books That Will Change Your OutlookZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. ... The Kite Runner by Khaleed Hosseini. ... The Great Santini by Pat Conroy. ... A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. ... Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg. ... The Ultimate HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.More items...

Which book is best for life?

10 Best Books About Life to Help You Find Your MeaningTo be Told: Know Your Story, Shape Your Future. ... The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. ... A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. ... The Hundred-Year Marathon. ... Let Your Life Speak. ... The Celestine Prophecy. ... The Artist's Way. ... The Alchemist.More items...•Mar 24, 2021

What are the books by Aesop?

Aesop’s Fables by Aesop. The Analects of Confucius by Confucius. The Art of War by Sun Tzu. King James Bible. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Alexander Brown. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.

Who wrote the Communist manifesto?

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Hiroshima by John Hersey. How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York by Jacob Riis.

Who wrote the book "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl"?

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet A. Jacobs. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass. On Liberty: Bold-faced Thoughts on Free Will, Free Speech, and the Importance of Individuality by John Stuart Mill.

When was Beloved by 124 published?

“124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children.” When Beloved was published in 1987 , and I saw these opening lines, plunging the reader into a house haunted by a murdered girl, I knew that I wasn’t ready to read it. It may seem surprising when I confess that, despite being a female African American writer, and this being the book that has best and most famously captured the female African American experience, I didn’t actually read it until two years ago. Why?

Where was the Elements written?

Written in Alexandria around 300BC, Elements is a 13-book treatise whose 465 theorems lay down what the Greeks knew about geometry at that time. Highlights include a proof of Pythagoras’s theorem, and proof that there are an infinite number of prime numbers.

What are Euclid's postulates?

The definitions describe the geometrical objects Euclid will be writing about, such as points and lines. The postulates tell us the procedures that are allowed, for example, that given any two points you can draw a line between them. (Euclid allows us only what we can draw with a straight edge and a compass.)

How many copies of The Second Sex were sold?

Unsurprisingly given its scope and force, The Second Sex was a publishing sensation. It sold 22,000 copies in its first week in Paris in 1949, and its English translation was an immediate bestseller in America. It has influenced feminists as divergent as Betty Friedan, Judith Butler and Audre Lorde.

Who was the first person to propose that species have mutated through time?

But it was Darwin – and, simultaneously, Alfred Russel Wallace – who worked out natural selection as the mechanism by which evolution worked.

What does Freud show in his dream book?

Freud shows the central place of sexuality and violence in our mental lives. Writers and poets have always been alert to the troubling and darker sides of the psyche, but it was the dream book that showed so carefully how exactly these currents are forged and encrypted, how they undergo distortion and censorship and how they are formed and shaped by language. The detail of the famous Chapter 7 on the psychology of dream processes is unparalleled, and its discussion of the relations between perception and consciousness puts most of today’s neuroscience to shame.

How to understand China?

To understand China, first we have to understand Confucius’s Analects. Written more than 2,400 years ago, the book underpins the cultural structure of China. Unlike the Bible and Qur’an, which focus on spirituality, the Analects is a practical account of the human order of things: family loyalty, moral virtue, social hierarchy and politics. If you are Chinese, lines from the Bible such as “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” can only bewilder you, as Confucius said nearly the opposite: “It is only the truly virtuous man who can love and hate others.” Hate is a necessary moral stance for a Chinese man.

What are some of the most influential books of all time?

Science, Math, and Geography. These works are some of the most influential books because they began or at least represent the beginning of entire movements and schools of thought in the fields of science, math, and geography. Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton.

Which is the best book ever written?

While Fyodor Dostoyevsky has written several works that could be considered some of the most influential ever published, Crime and Punishment is one that stands above the rest as one of the best books ever written.

What is the significance of the poem "Beloved" by Toni Morrison?

Beloved by Toni Morrison. Written to honor the memory of African American slaves brought over during the slave trade, Toni Morrison's Beloved is one of the most recognizable and influential texts in modern literature.

How old are religious texts?

Some of these texts are thousands of years old.

When was the Republic written?

The Republic, Plato. Written around 380 BCE, this text is considered to be one of the most influential pieces ever written. The Republic observes justice in man and politics and discusses the role of the philosopher in society.

Who wrote the narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass?

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , an American Slave by Frederick Douglass. Written by the famed orator and former slave, Frederick Douglass, this narrative is considered the most famous of pieces written by former slaves and one of the most influential texts during the abolitionist movement in the United States.

Who wrote Don Quixote?

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. This Spanish novel, originally published as two books, is one of the most influential and popular novels in the world. It's also considered to be one of the best books ever written.

When was the jungle book published?

Amazon. Published in 1906 . " The Jungle " made the squalor of Chicago factory life incredibly vivid — the harrowing working conditions, horrors of the slaughterhouse, and crushing poverty and despair that the workers faced on a daily basis.

How many chapters are there in the book The Last Jedi?

It is written in 13 chapters, each devoted to an aspect of warfare like spies, quick thinking, and avoiding massacres and atrocities. The book still has an influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy, and sports for its lessons on how to outsmart one's opponent.

What happened to Anne Frank?

Published in 1947. The book is a compilation of the diary writings of Anne Frank, a girl who hid with her family for two years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was discovered in 1944, and Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

When did Amazon come out?

Amazon. Believed to have originated between 620 and 560 B.C. " Aesop's Fables " is a collection of stories that are meant to teach the listener a life lesson. The fables are often credited to an ancient Greek slave and storyteller named Aesop (though the origin of the fables remains disputed). The stories are still important moral lessons ...

Who is Miriam Tuliao?

Miriam Tuliao, assistant director of central collection development at the New York Public Library, helped us come up with a list of the books that changed the course of history. We also added a few ideas of our choosing.

What is the significance of "Bury my heart at wounded knee"?

" Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee " uncovers the history of Native Americans in the late 19th century, particularly the injustices and betrayals committed by the US government and the Native Americans' forced relocation.

How many Muslims follow the Qur'an?

The central religious text of Islam, which is followed by 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, the Qur'an is believed by its followers to be the literal word of God revealed to the Prophet Muhammad 1,400 years ago.

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Politics and Government

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These titles represent some of the most influential books that examine politics, economics, and philosophy. Each of these texts had an impact on the way we understand governance. 1. The Republic, Plato. Written around 380 BCE, this text is considered to be one of the most influential pieces ever written. The Republic obs…
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Literature

  • From creating characters and stories that have become foundational elements in cultures around the world to upsetting undesirable standards and inspiring the imagination of many, these works of literature have touched the world in significant ways. These are the most influential books in literature. 1. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Written in the 14th century, this collectio…
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Society

  • These are the most influential books in terms of impacting society, texts that helped changed people's views on racism, feminism, consumption, and language. 1. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.This landmark book is built from the actual diary kept by Anne Frank, the young daughter of a Jewish family hiding during the Nazi takeover in the Netherlands. The innocence o…
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Science, Math, and Geography

  • These works are some of the most influential books because they began or at least represent the beginning of entire movements and schools of thought in the fields of science, math, and geography. 1. Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton. Written while Cambridge was closed because of the plague, Newton's Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathe…
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Religion

  • These religious texts are some of the most influential books ever written, serving as spiritual and lifestyle guides for countless people around the world. Some of these texts are thousands of years old. 1. The Bible.This sacred text brought Christianity to the world and has continued to serve as a source of inspiration for millions of people. It is the most translated and the most fre…
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