The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written
   HOME
*





The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written
''The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written: The History of Thought from Ancient Times to Today'' (1998) is a book of intellectual history written by Martin Seymour-Smith, a British poet, critic, and biographer. The list starts in order with the first ten books: the ''I Ching'' (an ancient Chinese divination text), the Hebrew Bible (a version of which serves as the "Old Testament" of the Christian Bible), the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', the Upanishads (a collection of ancient Indian philosophical texts), the ''Tao Te Ching'', the Avesta, the ''Analects'', the ''History of the Peloponnesian War'', the Hippocratic Corpus and the Corpus Aristotelicum. See also * List of best-selling books * Bokklubben World Library Bokklubben World Library ( no, Verdensbiblioteket) is a series of classical books, mostly novels, published by the since 2002. It is based on a list of the hundred best books, as proposed by one hundred writers from fifty-four countries, compiled ... References ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Martin Seymour-Smith
Martin Roger Seymour-Smith (24 April 1928 – 1 July 1998) was a British poet, literary critic, and biographer. Biography Seymour-Smith was born in London and educated at Highgate School and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he was editor of ''Isis'' and ''Oxford Poetry''. His father Frank was a chief librarian who supplied books to Robert Graves, and who published the survey ''An English Library, an Annotated List of 1300 Classics'' in 1943, followed by ''What Shall I Read Next: a Personal Selection of Twentieth Century English Books'' in 1953. His mother Marjorie wrote poetry and published under the name of Elena Fearn. He began as one of the most promising of Anglophone post-war poets, but became better known as a critic, writing biographies of Robert Graves (whom he met first at age 14 and maintained close ties with), Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy, and producing numerous critical studies. The poet and critic Robert Nye stated that Seymour-Smith was "one of the finest Brit ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Indian Philosophy
Indian philosophy refers to philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. A traditional Hindu classification divides āstika and nāstika schools of philosophy, depending on one of three alternate criteria: whether it believes the Vedas as a valid source of knowledge; whether the school believes in the premises of Brahman and Atman; and whether the school believes in afterlife and Devas. There are six major schools of Vedic philosophy— Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedanta, and five major heterodox (sramanic) schools—Jain, Buddhist, Ajivika, Ajñana, and Charvaka. However, there are other methods of classification; Vidyaranya for instance identifies sixteen schools of Indian philosophy by including those that belong to the Śaiva and Raseśvara traditions.Cowell and Gough, p. xii.Nicholson, pp. 158-162. The main schools of Indian philosophy were formalised and recognised chiefly between 500 BCE and the late centuries of the Common Era. Com ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Top Book Lists
A spinning top, or simply a top, is a toy with a squat body and a sharp point at the bottom, designed to be spun on its vertical axis, balancing on the tip due to the gyroscopic effect. Once set in motion, a top will usually wobble for a few seconds, spin upright for a while, then start to wobble again with increasing amplitude as it loses energy, and finally tip over and roll on its side. Tops exist in many variations and materials, chiefly wood, metal, and plastic, often with a metal tip. They may be set in motion by twirling a handle with the fingers, by pulling a rope coiled around the body, or by means of a built-in auger (spiral plunger). Such toys have been used since antiquity in solitary or competitive games, where each player tries to keep one's top spinning for as long as possible, or achieve some other goal. Some tops have faceted bodies with symbols or inscriptions, and are used like dice to inject randomness into games, or for divination and ritual purposes. The ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Intellectual History
Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of intellectual history is that ideas do not develop in isolation from the thinkers who conceptualize and apply those ideas; thus the intellectual historian studies ideas in two contexts: (i) as abstract propositions for critical application; and (ii) in concrete terms of culture, life, and history. As a field of intellectual enquiry, the history of ideas emerged from the European disciplines of '' Kulturgeschichte'' (Cultural History) and ''Geistesgeschichte'' (Intellectual History) from which historians might develop a global intellectual history that shows the parallels and the interrelations in the history of critical thinking in every society. Likewise, the history of reading, and the history of the book, about the material aspects of book production (des ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Books About Books
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many page (paper), pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bookbinding, bound together and protected by a book cover, cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a Recto, leaf and each side of a leaf is a page (paper), page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it co ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Bokklubben World Library
Bokklubben World Library ( no, Verdensbiblioteket) is a series of classical books, mostly novels, published by the since 2002. It is based on a list of the hundred best books, as proposed by one hundred writers from fifty-four countries, compiled and organized in 2002 by the Book Club. This list endeavors to reflect world literature, with books from all countries, cultures, and time periods. Each writer had to select his or her own list of ten books. The books selected by this process and listed here are not ranked or categorized in any way; the organizers have stated that "they are all on an equal footing," with the exception of ''Don Quixote'' which was given the distinction "best literary work ever written." Fyodor Dostoevsky is the author with the most books on the list, with four. William Shakespeare, Franz Kafka, and Leo Tolstoy each have three. Breakdown of voters and list The writers surveyed included 69 men and 31 women. 85 of the books included on the list are written ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




List Of Best-selling Books
This page provides lists of best-selling individual books and book series to date and in any language. ''"Best-selling"'' refers to the estimated number of copies sold of each book, rather than the number of books printed or currently owned. Comics and textbooks are not included in this list. The books are listed according to the highest sales estimate as reported in reliable, independent sources. This list is incomplete because there are many books, such as ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' by Alexandre Dumas, ''Don Quixote'' by Miguel de Cervantes, and ''The Lord of the Rings'' (which has been sold as both a trilogy of books, ''The Fellowship of the Ring'', ''The Two Towers'', and ''Return of the King'', and as a single issue) by J. R. R. Tolkien, that lack comprehensive sales figures. According to ''Guinness World Records'' as of 1995, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time with an estimated 5billion copies sold and distributed. Sales estimates for other printed religious ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Corpus Aristotelicum
The Corpus Aristotelicum is the collection of Aristotle's works that have survived from antiquity through medieval manuscript transmission. These texts, as opposed to Aristotle's works that were lost or intentionally destroyed, are technical philosophical treatises from within Aristotle's school. Reference to them is made according to the organization of Immanuel Bekker's nineteenth-century edition, which in turn is based on ancient classifications of these works. Overview of the extant works The extant works of Aristotle are broken down according to the five categories in the Corpus Aristotelicum. Not all of these works are considered genuine, but differ with respect to their connection to Aristotle, his associates and his views. Some are regarded by most scholars as products of Aristotle's "school" and compiled under his direction or supervision. (The '' Constitution of the Athenians'', the only major modern addition to the Corpus Aristotelicum, has also been so regarded.) ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hippocratic Corpus
The Hippocratic Corpus (Latin: ''Corpus Hippocraticum''), or Hippocratic Collection, is a collection of around 60 early Ancient Greek medical works strongly associated with the physician Hippocrates and his teachings. The Hippocratic Corpus covers many diverse aspects of medicine, from Hippocrates' medical theories to what he devised to be ethical means of medical practice, to addressing various illnesses. Even though it is considered a singular corpus that represents Hippocratic medicine, they vary (sometimes significantly) in content, age, style, methods, and views practiced; therefore, authorship is largely unknown. Hippocrates began Western society's development of medicine, through a delicate blending of the art of healing and scientific observations. What Hippocrates was sharing from within his collection of works was not only how to identify symptoms of disease and proper diagnostic practices, but more essentially, he was alluding to his personable form of art, "The art of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

History Of The Peloponnesian War
The ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' is a historical account of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), which was fought between the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) and the Delian League (led by Athens). It was written by Thucydides, an Athenian historian who also served as an Athenian general during the war. His account of the conflict is widely considered to be a classic and regarded as one of the earliest scholarly works of history. The ''History'' is divided into eight books. Analyses of the ''History'' generally occur in one of two camps. On the one hand, some scholars such as J. B. Bury view the work as an objective and scientific piece of history. The judgment of Bury reflects this traditional interpretation of the ''History'' as "severe in its detachment, written from a purely intellectual point of view, unencumbered with platitudes and moral judgments, cold and critical." On the other hand, in keeping with more recent interpretations that are associated with re ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Analects
The ''Analects'' (; ; Old Chinese: '' ŋ(r)aʔ''; meaning "Selected Sayings"), also known as the ''Analects of Confucius'', the ''Sayings of Confucius'', or the ''Lun Yu'', is an ancient Chinese book composed of a large collection of sayings and ideas attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius and his contemporaries, traditionally believed to have been compiled and written by Confucius's followers. It is believed to have been written during the Warring States period (475–221 BC), and it achieved its final form during the mid-Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD). By the early Han dynasty the ''Analects'' was considered merely a "commentary" on the Five Classics, but the status of the ''Analects'' grew to be one of the central texts of Confucianism by the end of that dynasty. During the late Song dynasty (960–1279 AD) the importance of the ''Analects'' as a Chinese philosophy work was raised above that of the older Five Classics, and it was recognized as one of the "Four Books" ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Avesta
The Avesta () is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language. The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect, or by usage. The principal text in the liturgical group is the ''Yasna'', which takes its name from the Yasna ceremony, Zoroastrianism's primary act of worship, and at which the ''Yasna'' text is recited. The most important portion of the ''Yasna'' texts are the five Gathas, consisting of seventeen hymns attributed to Zoroaster himself. These hymns, together with five other short Old Avestan texts that are also part of the ''Yasna'', are in the Old (or 'Gathic') Avestan language. The remainder of the ''Yasna'''s texts are in Younger Avestan, which is not only from a later stage of the language, but also from a different geographic region. Extensions to the Yasna ceremony include the texts of the ''Vendidad'' and the ''Visperad''. The ''Visperad'' extensions consist mainly of addit ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]