# What Books have had the greatest effect in the Real World?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-had-the-greatest-effect-in-the-real-world/750018>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [March 24, 2016, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-had-the-greatest-effect-in-the-real-world/750018 "2016-03-24T11:54:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-had-the-greatest-effect-in-the-real-world/750018/21 "2016-03-24T20:15:47Z")

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I don’t know how true it is, but supposedly the Romans really loved [The Iliad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad) and it formed a central, almost religious position in their culture as a backbone to the military tradition.

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**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-had-the-greatest-effect-in-the-real-world/750018/23 "2016-03-25T04:24:26Z")

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> [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](#):
>
> I’m not trying to be argumentative, but I’m just not aware of any huge effect The Color Purple had on the world at large. Roots I agree with, since it was a huge phenomenon that personalized the slavery experience AND made genealogy a much bigger hobby. But I just remember The Color Purple as a fairly popular book and movie, not as something that caused any large-scale changes.

I was speaking from personal experience, Roots, 1984, etc. all had a profound effect on me. I never got into genealogy from Roots but it had a big impact on my 13-year old brain.

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**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-had-the-greatest-effect-in-the-real-world/750018/24 "2016-03-25T13:03:28Z")

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Les Miserables was supposedly [extremely popular](http://rvanews.com/features/civil-war-lees-miserables/117157) among the Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War (who read a censored serial version with Hugo’s abolitionist views removed) and Lee was said to give copies to his officers to carry with them.

My own copy has a forward talking about its influence in other revolts, revolutions and civil conflicts but the Civil War one is best remembered.

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