25 Boeken die de loop der geschiedenis veranderden

C. Darwin. Het Ontstaan der Soorten, 1913.

De New York Public Library selecteerde 25 Boeken die de loop der geschiedenis veranderden. Dit lijkt een nogal ambitieuze en megalomane denkoefening, maar het leverde niettemin een aardige lijst op. Samensteller van dienst was Miriam Tuliao, adjunct-directeur Selection, Library Services Center. Criteria waren onder andere het gebruik, aantal ontleningen doorheen de voorbije decennia en de impact van de boeken op ons hedendaags leven en denken.

Top 25 Books that Changed History 

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
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and 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
I Ching: The Book of Change
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
Origin of the Species: By Means of Natural Selection of the Preservation of Favoured Races inthe Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin
The Qur’an
Republic by Plato
The Rights of Man: For the Benefit of All Mankind by Thomas Paine
The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
The Torah: The Five Books of Moses