Top 25 Books That Changed History: According to a New York Public Librarian

Miriam Tuliao from the Library Services Center of the New York Public Library has compiled a list of 25 books that she believes have changed the course of history. Some of these books on the list are givens: 1984, King James Bible, On the Origin of the Species, Silent Spring..., but some of them were ones that I hadn't even thought of. Check some of these out, and tell me if you agree with her. As always, Happy Reading!




1. 1984 by George Orwell
FIC ORWELL

2. Aesop's Fables
J 398.2 WARD   Unwitting Wisdom: An Anthology of Aesop's Fables

3. The Analects of Confucius by Confucius
299.512 CONFUCIU   The Wisdom of Confucius

4. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
355.02 SUNZI

5. King James Bible
220.5

6. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Alexander
Brown           970.5 BROWN

7. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles
335.422 MARX

8. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
949.2 FRANK

9. A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson
We don't have this specific book, but dictionaries are located in 423.

10. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
305.420973 FRIEDAN

11. Hiroshima by John Hersey
940.5425 HERSEY

12. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among Tenements of New York  by Jacob A. Riis
301.441 RIIS

13. I Ching: The Book of Change
299.51282 I    I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change: The First Complete Translation with Concordance 

14. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet A. Jacobs
B JACOBS

15. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
FIC SINCLAIR

16. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass
B DOUGLASS

17. On Liberty: Bold-faced Thoughts on Free Will, Free Speech, and the Importance of Individuality by John Stuart Mill 
192 MILL   The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill: Ethical, Political, and Religious
323.34 MILL   On Liberty and the Subjection of Women 

18. Origin of the Species: By Means of Natural Selection of the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin   
576.82 DARWIN (along with The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex) 

19. The Qu'ran
297.1227 

20. Republic by Plato
321.07 PLATO 

21. The Rights of Man: For the Benefit of All Mankind by Thomas Paine
320.51 PAINE  Collected Writings

22. The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir
305.401 BEAUVOIR

23. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
577 CARSON

24. The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
299.51482 LAOZI  Tao Te Ching: A New Translation & Commentary = Da de Jing

25. The Torah: The Five Books of Moses
222.1 




Read the article here, or read more about Miriam Tuliao's choices on the library's blog here.