A matter of Influence-ah?
As my regular readership will no doubt remember, I have a (very) long-term project to read some of the world’s influential or significant books of the last few centuries. Part of the (non-rational) reason for this is a vague sub-conscious feeling of educational inadequacy from going through the State educational system design, in large part, to produce working class factory fodder. The Comprehensive Schools I attended certainly had little room and no remit to produce scholars! So, I thought, if my education system didn’t do it, I’ll do it myself. Of course, being ME, I didn’t go at this ‘project’ directly but kind of sidled up to it like I was ‘hunting wabbits’. The list below is what I’ve managed so far (in the lifetime of this Blog) with new additions in BOLD. I’m not sure what (if anything!) I’ll be adding this year. I need to sort through my piles of books & dig something important out and dust it/them off....
The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby
Fast Food Nation – What the All-American Meal is Doing to the World by Eric Schlosser
The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon
Dune by Frank Herbert
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown
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
Only 3 added this year which isn’t great but isn’t too bad. This year I’ll try for at least 3 again and do my best to find at least 1 of them that most other people will at least have heard of! Wish me luck....
4 comments:
That's an impressive list! I'm ashamed to say I've only read two of those books - To Kill a Mockingbird and Testament of Youth. Good luck with adding more to the list this year!
Very impressive. Do read To Kill a Mockingbird. I discovered the book in the summer between 5th and 6th grade (I was 11). I found it on my uncle's shelf and Grandma noticed I had gotten very quiet in the basement. When she asked what I was reading, she about had a heart attack, she though my mom was going to be upset. it's a tad heavy for an 11 year old but I don't think story will surprise you. It's been my favorite book of all time ever since.
Great list that includes three of my all-time favorites that I have read and reread over the years; Hoffer's The True Believer, Camus' The Rebel, and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.
@ Helen: It took a LONG time to get that list under my belt. Some of the early stuff is from my set reading in my Philosophy MA and others from books I had gathering dust on my shelves. Some of it is pretty obscure or niche so I'll be trying to read some more well-known books this year! I can definitely recommend 'Suffragette – My Own Story' by Emmeline Pankhurst. I think you'd really like that one.
@ Sarah: Mockingbird was really impressive. I can see why it became a classic.
@ James: I'm a big fan of Camus and the Continental philosophers. I need to read more/some Philosophy this year. I miss it.
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