Influencer……

As part of my ongoing quest to ‘Understand the World’ I have over the past few years been reading a handful of significant or influential books each year. As these works changed the world in ways both large and small I thought that they’d give me at least some insight, both large and small, into the reasons exactly why the world is the way it is. As with life itself this is very much an ongoing project without any clearly defined end point. My short term aim is to read at least three such books each year. Below is the list of works read so far (in chronological order read) with the most recent in BOLD.

Rock of Ages – Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life by Stephen Jay Gould

How Children Fail by John Holt

The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard

Suffragette – My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst

The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer

The Old Straight Track - Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites and Mark Stones by Alfred Watkins

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

All The President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence

The True Believer – Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer

The Rights of Man by H G Wells

The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes

The Two Cultures by C P Snow

The City by Max Weber

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

The War of the Flea – A Study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory & Practice by Robert Taber

Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P Newton

Seize the Time – The Story of The Black Panther Party and Huey P Newton by Bobby Searle

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

The Autobiography of Malcolm X with the assistance of Alex Haley

Achtung Panzer! – The Development of Tank Warfare by Heinz Guderian

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore

About Looking by John Berger

A Vindication of The Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

War on Wheels – The Evolution of an Idea by C R Kutz

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Design as Art by Bruno Munari

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell

The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz

The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

The Rebel by Albert Camus

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

A Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara

So, not exactly a huge leap forward in significance but any progress is still progress I guess! These books are prompted by a pair of ‘Wild Cards’ (of which more later) in my ‘Read Next’ stack resting rather precariously on my sofa. I have since increased this number to three. So, here’s to 2021 and hopefully many more significant reads.