# \--Most Influential Books-- **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 9, 2003, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506 "2003-01-09T14:18:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jesseboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/90ced4/32.png) [@jesseboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jesseboy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/1 "2003-01-09T14:18:43Z")
hi there, I think it is safe to say in an age of ‘un-literacy’ as our own, a single book cannot become something that is read or known by virtually everyone. That is, it cannot acheive everlasting greatness and influence. I would like to know what u guys think are some of the most influential books/texts ever written. The most obvious examples are the Bible and the communist Manifesto. These were not merely relics understood or known by just the learned few, but seminal pieces which influenced millions of people throughout history. Let me know what u guys think, Jesse ---
**Author:** ![racekarl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6bbea6/32.png) [@racekarl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racekarl)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/2 "2003-01-09T14:34:00Z")
Heh, your attitude sounds a lot like that of the people who advocated closing the patent office around the turn of the century because “everything that can possibly be invented already has been.” I agree that the Bible (and just consider that the old testament encompases the Torah) is up there, in the same vein I would add the Quran. Not really a book, but perhaps the US Constitution deserves a place in the list. The Magna Carta for the same reason. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/3 "2003-01-09T14:48:15Z")
Well right now I’m on page 800 of **Atlas Shrugged** by Ayn Rand. I started reading it due to its reputation as being an “influential book.” Not sure if it truly qualifies or not… ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/4 "2003-01-09T15:11:47Z")
Burn me for a heretic, but given the influence on fantasy literature in the 20th century, gaming and movies, I nominate **Lord of the Rings.** That and **The Art of War.** ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/5 "2003-01-09T15:14:15Z")
Religous texts have to take the title of course, but some others: **The Origin of Species** has to be up there as well. **The Canterbury Tales** is widely regarded to have created the short story genre **Beowulf** the oldest surviving epic story (in English anyway) ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/6 "2003-01-09T15:20:41Z")
or, you could [just read these](http://www.sjca.edu/college/readlist.phtml) if you have about 4 years to spare ---
**Author:** ![Improv\_Geek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b3f665/32.png) [@Improv\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Improv_Geek)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/7 "2003-01-09T15:52:05Z")
I think _Lord of the Rings_ is definitely influential - it’s still the #2 most read book in the world behind the bible, not to mention it single-handedly created a universe for the fantasy genre which almost everyone uses. As for this century, I think _Harry Potter_ deserves note. It has changed children’s books. There have always been children’s novels, but the length with which she maintains a child’s interest has changed the way children’s literature focuses. While it is still up and coming, the book which is touted as the beginning of the blogging craze, _The Cluetrain Manifesto_ seems to be gaining in its influence. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/8 "2003-01-09T23:43:53Z")
A few obvious ones: **The Prince** **The Wealth of Nations** The **Tao Te Ching** (sp?) **Mein Kampf** Chairman Mao’s **Little Red Book** **Uncle Tom’s Cabin** **Common Sense** ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/9 "2003-01-10T01:30:41Z")
I’d second most (if not all) of the aforementioned. Just a couple to add: **The Iliad** (by Homer – one of the pillars of Western Literature, and which both glorified and signaled the death knell of the Greek heroic code) **Martin Luther’s 95 Theses** (signaled the begining of the Reformation) **The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn** (as Hemingway said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn”) **A Vindication of the Rights of Women** (by Mary Wollstonecraft – a precursor to the feminist movement) **The Interpretation of Dreams** (by Ziggy Freud) **Beyond Freedom and Dignity** (by B.F. Skinner – the seminal work of the behavioralist movement) **The Jungle** (Upton Sinclair’s muckracking book that brought about a public demand for clean food practices, as well as establishing a benchmark for investigative journalism) **The Upanishads** (Hindu religious philosophy) **The I Ching** (perhaps apocryphal, but I’ve read that Liebniz once wrote that the yin-yang philosophy of the I Ching inspired him to invent the binary mathematical system that now forms the basis for our computer systems) **the Republic** (Plato’s work on government and society) **Relativity** (by Albert Einstein) **The First and Second Discourse** (by Jean Jacque Rousseau – critiques of the Enlightenment and an essay on the foundations of inequality) **General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money** (by John Maynard Keynes – the foundation for the Federal Reserve System in America, and the basis for much modern economic thought) Sorry. That’s definitely more than “a couple.” I’ll stop now before it gets too ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![suzq267](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3be4f8/32.png) [@suzq267](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suzq267)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/10 "2003-01-10T06:40:05Z")
Following one trend of noting early works above, I believe \*\*The Epic of Gilgamesh[b/] may predate **Beowulf** , although (in school) i didn’t recognize the merit to Gilgamesh as apparent as that of Beowulf. In addition, I’m not sure the world-_altering_ works are as noteworthy in this day and age as those _universal_ works listed above i.e. PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, HISTORY. ---
**Author:** ![Banger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@Banger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banger)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/11 "2003-01-10T06:53:20Z")
Just a note, **jesseboy** : next time you should post this in Cafe Society. Although you are asking opinions (which normally go in IMHO), it’s about books, the domain of Cafe Society. Of course, the mods may disagree and just keep it in this forum 😉 I think that Aristotle’s **Politics** and **Nicomachean Ethics** should be there. If I was to pick a novel, it would be Dostoyevsky’s **Crime and Punishment**. It is considered by many to be a classic, a great psychological novel (a genre many cite Dostoyevsky as creating), plus I really really like it 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/12 "2003-01-10T19:23:27Z")
Although they are more collections than works by a single author, I’d have to include the Tales of the Brothers Grimm, and Mother Goose on this list, since they are the first collections of childrens stories which still survive to this day. I suppose Hans Christien Anderson (sp?) goes along in there as well, with The Little Mermaid. And what about A.A. Milne and Winne the Pooh? I suppose they are much more influential on children than on society as a whole, but I think they’re important. Although it probably doesn’t count, I really kind of WISH that Antoine de St. Exupery’s _Le Petit Prince_ would make that list, since it’s such a wonderful book, and it SHOULD influence more people than it does! I read somewhere once that it has been translated into 80 or 90 languages, including Latin! ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/13 "2003-01-10T21:06:34Z")
Dr. Spock’s **Baby and Child Care**. For the first time children were accorded rights, and Spock gave parents permission to love their kids and to throw away the ‘rule-books’. **"The Female Eunuch"** by Germaine Greer and **“The Feminine Mystique”** by Betty Friedan both radically changed the course of human interactions, socially, politically and economically. Oh, and the **Oxford English Dictionary**. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![crinklebat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@crinklebat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crinklebat)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/14 "2003-01-11T06:14:19Z")
As a member of one of the world’s many Lewis Carroll Societies, I need to put in a word for Carroll’s \Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland\ and \Through the Looking-Glass\. Dismiss them as nonsense if you like, but they’re still the third most quoted books in English when viewed as a package (behind the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare). Everyone’s heard of them, most have seen one movie version or another, and many have read them. They’re everywhere. Carroll changes worldviews, informs political discussion, and pops up in logic and math textbooks all the time. And the books were revolutionary in literature as being among the first children’s books that really were written for kids, and appealed to kids. ---
**Author:** ![Murcielago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Murcielago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Murcielago)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/15 "2003-01-11T08:06:59Z")
John Stuart Mill’s **“On Liberty”** is often overlooked. His work was central in the development of democratic thought in the late 19th century, particularly in recognizing the rights of the individual and the limits of “majority rule.” John-Paul Sartre’s **“Being and Nothingness”**. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/16 "2003-01-11T08:58:14Z")
The way this thread is going; I nominate **Dick & Jane**. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/17 "2003-01-11T09:05:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kniz \* > \*\*The way this thread is going; I nominate **Dick & Jane**. :rolleyes: \*\* Hey…don’t diss Dick and Jane, (or **John and Betty** as it was known down here). Seeing Scottie and Fluff run (and being able to understand the _words_ that described their antics) was a profound moment in my 4 yr old life. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/18 "2003-01-11T13:26:48Z")
Why do so many people format book names in **bold** when you should do it in _italics_? Galileo’s [_A Dialogue on Two Chief World Systems_](http://webexhibits.org/calendars/year-text-Galileo.html) ---
**Author:** ![galen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecc23a/32.png) [@galen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2003, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-influential-books/147506/19 "2003-01-12T00:29:15Z")
The Bible, The Wealth of Nations and Capital.