The 100 Most Influential Books since WWII

[CosmosKramer]

This list was originally published in the Times Literary Supplement in 1995.

Which of these have you read and liked most? Which ones do you most want to read? What should be added?

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grttls.html


From the 40's I've read:

Erich Fromm's Escape From Freedom

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805031499/sr=1-1/qid=1139374032/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-9556495-8016731?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Koestler's Darkness at Noon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0099424916/qid=1139374603/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-9556495-8016731?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 (Who hasn't?)

Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080705643X/qid=1139375542/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-9556495-8016731?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

This book IMO needs to be read by everyone ASAP.

50's:

None, but I think Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism may be next for me.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156701537/qid=1139376765/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-9556495-8016731?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Can't see how C. Wright Mills White Collar isn't on the list

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195006771/qid=1139377420/sr=1-10/ref=sr_1_10/104-9556495-8016731?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Also, Fromm's The Sane Society should be here.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805014020/qid=1139378025/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-9556495-8016731?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

60's:

Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140187650/ref=pd_bxgy_text_b/104-9556495-8016731?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=br_ss_hs/104-9556495-8016731?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Dstripbooks%3Arelevance-above%26dispatch%3Dsearch%26results-process%3Dbin&field-keywords=Jane+Jacobs%3A+The+Death+and+Life+of+Great+American+Cities+&Go.x=14&Go.y=10

I think Lewis Mumford's Technics and Civilization should be on the list of influential 60's books.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/015688254X/qid=1139376525/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-9556495-8016731?s=books&v=glance&n=283155


70's:

Not a one

80's and beyond:

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553380168/qid=1139377819/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-9556495-8016731?s=books&v=glance&n=283155


I think Daniel Guerin's Fascism and Big Business should be added to the list of "Certain seminal works published before the Second World War.."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006S45KC/qid=1139378321/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-9556495-8016731?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Good luck finding that one!

[DoctorJones24]

Interesting list. Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting? Hm. I liked that a lot, but one of the 100 most influential books of the last 50 years?

I've read sections of many of the non-fiction ones, but not many full texts. It seems feminism is way underrepresented, given its impact as a worldwide movement. The various Marxisms are overrepresented, I think.

[taosjohn]

Interesting list. Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting? Hm. I liked that a lot, but one of the 100 most influential books of the last 50 years?

I've read sections of many of the non-fiction ones, but not many full texts. It seems feminism is way underrepresented, given its impact as a worldwide movement. The various Marxisms are overrepresented, I think.

Feminine Mystique at least.
Silent Spring
the Little Red Book
Catch 22

Panda's Thumb?
Nuclear Winter?
Slaughterhouse 5?
Custer Died for Your Sins?
To Kill A Mockingbird?
100 Years of Solitude?
Goedel Escher Bach-- the Eternal Golden Braid?

[spejic]

I've read 4, and let me tell you that Roger Penrose does not belong on that list.

[BenReilly]

How can Stan Lee not be on this list??

[topcatcole]

Excellent article on this in Washingtonian Magazine in November. Here is the link:
http://washingtonian.com/books/bookshelf/1105.html

I like the way the article starts:
"
A president notable for his obstinacy. A Defense secretary obsessed with secrecy. A controversial military court. No, it’s not 2005—it’s 1865.
The president was Andrew Johnson, his War secretary Edwin Stanton. The military tribunal was convened at the old Washington penitentiary to try eight of John Wilkes Booth’s alleged conspirators for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
The point: Not much changes in Washington other than the names and political parties and who’s in, who’s out. But change does happen, and an argument can be made that books nudge it along."



The list is oriented towards those that drove policy, to one degree or another. I have read about 30% and I'm trying to get many of the others. Enjoy.

[DoctorJones24]

Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth
Anderson's Imagined Communities
Greer's The Female Eunuch
Derrida's Of Grammatology
Millet's Sexual Politics
Said's Orientalism
Lacan's Ecrits

[taosjohn]

Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth
Anderson's Imagined Communities
Greer's The Female Eunuch
Derrida's Of Grammatology
Millet's Sexual Politics
Said's Orientalism
Lacan's Ecrits


That's the one I ws trying to remember to suggest... thanks.

Strongly disagee about the Greer tho'... no place in the canon, and did not sidetrack the movement, so it didn't do much whichever way you view it. Atkinson was more important and Griffin and Dinnerstein way more important and Morgan more amusing and none of them wound up influential in a top 100 way. The Millett I could see, maybe...

[DoctorJones24]

Strongly disagee about the Greer tho'... no place in the canon, and did not sidetrack the movement, so it didn't do much whichever way you view it. Atkinson was more important and Griffin and Dinnerstein way more important and Morgan more amusing and none of them wound up influential in a top 100 way. The Millett I could see, maybe...

Fair enough. That was very much an outsider's guess at a few that would seem to be more influential to world culture than Fernand Braudel's: The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II.

[taosjohn]

Fair enough. That was very much an outsider's guess at a few that would seem to be more influential to world culture than Fernand Braudel's: The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II.

More than fair:D

[DoctorJones24]

Meant to add:

Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Noam Chomsky