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WESTERN CIVILIZATION |
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WESTERN CIVILIZATION |
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In his book Molders of the Modern Mind: 111 Books That Shaped Western Civilization (1961), Robert B. Downs stressed that "there is no intention here to offer another list of 'great' books, or 'best' books. The basic principle of selection is to discover those books that have directly influenced the history, economics, government, law, scientific thought, and other aspects of Western life since the beginning of the Renaissance in Europe. Many of the books that made the greatest impact during these five hundred years are badly written works, lacking in literary style, but presenting revolutionary new concepts or highly emotional appeals." He places emphasis "primarily on the sciences and social sciences, especially the biological and physical sciences, economics, political science, history, education, and sociology." Belles-lettres are omitted unless the "cultural or sociological impact is readily apparent." Downs devotes 3-4 pages to each of the following titles that are ordered by date of publication.
| 1493 | Christopher Colunbus | Letter of Christopher Columbus Concerning Newly Discovered Lands |
| 1511 | Desderius Erasmus | The Praise of Folly |
| 1516 | Sir Thomas Moore | Utopia |
| 1520 | Martin Luther | An Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation |
| 1532 | Niccolo Machiavelli | The Prince |
| 1536 | John Calvin | Institutes of the Christian Religion |
| 1543 | Nicolaus Copernicus | Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres |
| 1543 | Andreas Vesalius | On the Structure of the Human Body |
| 1576 | Jean Bodin | The Six Books on The State |
| 1580- | Michel de Montaigne | Essays (1580-95) |
| 1600 | William Gilbert | On the Loadstone, Magnetic Bodies and on the Great Magnet the Earth |
| 1603 | William Shakespeare | Hamlet |
| 1605 | Francis Bacon | On the Proficience and the Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human |
| 1605- | Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra | Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605-1615) |
| 1609 | Johannes Kepler | The New Asronomy |
| 1619 | Johannes Kepler | Harmony of the World |
| 1625 | Hugo Grotius | On the Law of War and Peace |
| 1628 | William Harvey | Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals |
| 1632 | Galileo Galilei | Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World, the Ptolemaic and the Copernican |
| 1637 | Rene Descartes | A Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking Truth inthe Sciences |
| 1644 | John Milton | Aeropagitica: A Speach of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing in the Parliament of England |
| 1651 | Thomas Hobbes | Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme & Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civill |
| 1661 | Robert Boyle | The Sceptical Chymist: or Chymico- Physical Doubts & Paradoxes |
| 1665 | Robert Hooke | Micrograaphia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon |
| 1678 | John Bunyon | The Pilgrim's Progress |
| 1687 | Isaac Newton | Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy |
| 1690 | John Locke | Two Treatises of Government |
| 1697 | Pierre Bayle | Historical and Critical Dictionary |
| 1719 | Anton van Leeuwenhoek | Letters to the Royal Society of England |
| 1719 | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe |
| 1725 | Giambattista Vico | The New Science |
| 1726 | Jonathan Swift | Robinson Crusoe |
| 1748 | Chatles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu | Spirit of the Laws |
| 1751 | Denis Diderot | Encyclopedia, or Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts (1731-32) |
| 1755 | Samuel Johnson | A Dictionary of the English Language |
| 1758- | Carolus Linneaus | System of Nature (1758-59) |
| 1762 | Jean Jacquws Rousseau | The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right |
| 1764 | Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire | Philosophical Dictionary |
| 1764 | Cesare Bonesana Beccaria | On Crimes and Punishment |
| 1765- | William Blackstone | Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69) |
| 1774 | Thomas Jefferson | A Summary View of the Rights of British America |
| 1776 | Adam Smith | An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations |
| 1776 | Thomas Paine | Common Sense, Addressed to the Inhabitants of America |
| 1776- | Edward Gibbon | The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire |
| 1788 | Alexander Hamilton, James Madison & John Jay | The Federalist: A Collection of Essays Written in Favor of the New Constitution |
| 1788 | James Hutton | Theory of the Earth: An Investigation of the Laws Obsevable in the Composition, Dissolution, and restoration of Land upon the Globe |
| 1789 | Antoine Laurent Lavoisier | Elementary Treatise of Chemistry |
| 1789 | Jeremy Bentham | An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation |
| 1790 | Edmund Burke | Reflections on the French Revolution |
| 1791 | Benjamin Franklin | Autobiography |
| 1792 | Mary Wollstonecraft | Vindication of the Rights of Women |
| 1793 | William Godwin | An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness |
| 1795 | Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet | Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind |
| 1795 | Immanuel Kant | Eternal Peace: A Philosophical Proposal |
| 1798 | Edward Jenner | An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, A Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cow Pox |
| 1798 | Thomas Malthus | An Essay on the Principle of Population |
| 1799- | Pierre Simon Laplace | Celestial Mechanics (1799-1825) |
| 1801 | Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi | How Gertrude Teaches Her Children |
| 1807- | Johann Heinrich Fichte | Addresses to the German Nation (1807-08) |
| 1808- | John Dalton | A New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808-27) |
| 1813- | Robert Owen | A New View of Societh, or Essays on the Formation of Human Character (1813-14) |
| 1821 | Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel | The Philosophy of Right |
| 1828 | Noah Webster | An American Dictionary of the English Language |
| 1830- | Charles Lyell | Principles of Geology, Being an Attempt to the Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface by Reference to Causes Now in Operation |
| 1830- | Auguste Comte | Course of Positive Philosophy (1830-42) |
| 1832- | Karl von Clausewitz | On War (1832-34) |
| 1835- | Alexis de Tocqueville | Democracy in America (1835-40) |
| 1836- | William Holmes McGuffey | Eclectic Readers (1836-37) |
| 1839- | Michael Farraday | Experimental Researchers in Electricity (1839-55) |
| 1840 | Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz | Studies on Glaciers |
| 1840 | Pierre Joseph Proudhon | What Is Property? or an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government |
| 1841 | Thomas Carlyle | On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History |
| 1841- | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Essays (1841-44) |
| 1845- | Alexander von Humboldt | Cosmos (1845-62) |
| 1847 | Hermann von Helmholtz | On the Conservation of Force |
| 1848 | Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels | The Communist Manifesto |
| 1849 | Henry David Thoreau | Resistance to Civil Government |
| 1852 | Harriet Beecher Stowe | Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| 1854 | Charles Dickens | Hard Times |
| 1857 | Louis Pasteur | Treatise on the Fermentation Known as Lactic |
| 1859 | Charles Darwin | On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life |
| 1859 | John Stuart Mill | On Liberty |
| 1860 | Abraham Lincoln & Stephen A. Douglas | Political Debates...in the Celebrated Campaign of 1858 in Illinois |
| 1862 | Victor Marie Hugo | Les Miserables |
| 1865 | Jules Verne | From the Earth to the Moon |
| 1866 | Gregor Johann Mendel | Experiments in Plant Hybridization |
| 1867 | Joseph Lister | On the Antisptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery |
| 1867 | Horatio Alger, Jr. | Ragged Dick |
| 1871 | Walt Whitman | Democratic Vistas |
| 1876- | Josiah Willard Gibbs | On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances (1876-77) |
| 1879 | Henry George | Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry Into the Causes of Industrial Depressions, and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth; the Remedy |
| 1879 | Henrik Ibsen | A Doll's House |
| 1882 | Robert Koch | The Etiology of Tuberculosis |
| 1884 | Herbert Spencer | The Man Versus the State |
| 1886 | Friedrich Nietzsche | Beyond Good and Evil |
| 1888 | Edward Bellamy | Looking Backward, 2000-1887 |
| 1889 | George Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, at al | Fabian Essays in Socialism |
| 1890 | Alfred T. Mahan | The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 |
| 1890- | Sir James G. Frazer | The Golden Bough (1890, 1911-15) |
| 1893 | Frederick Jackson Turner | The Significance of the Frontier in American History |
| 1897- | Havelock Ellis | Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897-1928) |
| 1899 | Thorstein Veblen | The Theory of the Leisure Class |
| 1899 | John Dewey | School and Society |
| 1904 | Halford Mackinder | The Geographical Pivot of History |
| 1911 | Trederick Winslow Taylor | Principles of Scientific Management |
| 1913 | Woodrow Wilson | The New Freedom |
| 1917 | Albert Einstein | Relativity, The Special and General Theory |
| 1918 | Nikolai Lenin | The State and Revolution |
| 1919 | John Maynard Keynes | The Economic Consequences of Peace |
| 1925- | Adolph Hitler | Mein Kampf (1925-27) |
| 1927 | Ivan Petrovich Pavlov | Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebreal Cortex. |
| 1930 | Sigmund Freud | Civilization and Its Discontents |
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