Books changed human thought

[Ranoo]

Books changed human thought(mind) by an Arab writer Ahamed Mohammed Al-Shinwani is one of my favorites.The book is divided into 9 parts, providing readers by the title for the most great books that changed people's way of thinking around the world throught the history.In addition to this ,it gives a brife summary for every book along with its author biography.
and some of the books included in that book are
1- Uncle Tom's Cbin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
2-Shakespear's plays
4- Arabin Nights unknown author
3-Madam Bovary Gustave Flaubert
5-Sintific manegment Taylor
6-"The Interpretation of Dreams" Sigmund Frued

If you had a chance to write about the book that might change people way of thinking and had changed your mind ,what would that book(s) be ?

[starrwriter]

Anna Karenina? You must be joking.

Here's my partial list:

Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
Relativity Theory by Albert Einstein
The Prince by Machiavelli
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Capital by Karl Marx

[Nightshade]

I dont know about the human race but for me I guess
A tree grew in brocklyn
A circle of endless light by D'engle
Hope was here (cant rember who)
Death comes as the end (agatha christie)
What freud really said ( though I never had the stomach to finish it)
A childs history of the world
(no fanastic or famous books on the list there but each one of thoss books changed the way I thought in a way that I could actually feel happening
:D

[IrishCanadian]

What about the Bible?
hmmm and what else, let me think...
~Mother Courage and her Childeren (Brecht)
~The Oddysey (Homer)
~Siddarhta (Herman Hesse) ... brought eastern thought to the western world.
~Whatever might be the easrliest popular Existential play or novel.
~The biggining of Walt Whitman ... introduction of post modern petry.
... i'm sure there are literally hundereds more

[Ranoo]

No starrwriter I was not joking ,I was kidding :D loool I know it is the same ..
I think I did this mistake while writing ,because I was thinking about Anna Karenina as one of the greatest books I ever known.Anyway, thanks for correcting me.I put Madame Bovary in its place.

IrishCanadian,

In my own opinion all of the religious books the Holy Qura'an, Bible ...etc considered to be in that catigory.But Al-Shinwani does not include them.

More books on Al-Shinwani's book are:
7-Paradise Lost John Milton
8- Ibn-khaldoun's introduction Mukademet Iben khaldoun

[Nightshade]

how do I know all these names?
ibn knaldoun?which one was he?
and al shinawi I know its a commone enough name but it rings a bell.
actually Ranoo I think historically speaking the Bible is more dramtic than the Quaran as it cause he printing press to be invented mass publishing. Well maybe the history of the Western world,at least that was what my literature teacher used to say *shrug*

[Ranoo]

Nightshade
Ibn Kaldoun, a Persian writer, born in 1332, who writes in Arbic language the greatest books ,and his introductoin is very well-known and it is translated into English Language. In fact, his introduction has a very long title but it is known by Iben khaldoun's Introduction"means I n Arabic Mukademet Iben khaldoun

If you can read Arbic ,you can read it online
http://ar.wikisource.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%82%D8%AF%D9%85%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86_ %D8%AE%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%86

I'm about to turn in now I'll com back later on to write more about it .

[Nightshade]

Thats it! year 10 mandatory arabic literture, and Im pretty sure there is a street named after him in Cairo.
:nod:

[Ranoo]

Hi Nightshade,
No more Arabic ;) :D
Now you can read about Ibn Kaldoun in English just click :cool:
http://sis.gov.eg/public/magazine/iss035e/html/mag06.htm
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/196605/the.scholar.from.algeria.htm

[mukta581]

hiiii
"It is not how much you do, but how much love you put in the doing."

[JBI]

Discourse on the Method, Rene Decartes
Beyond Good and Evil, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Will to Power, Frederick Nietzsche
Ulysses, James Joyce
In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust.
Das Kapital, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx
The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin
Selected Works, Sigmund Freud
Short Stories, Anton Chekhov
Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
Utopia, Thomas Moore
The Divine Comedy, Dante
The Decameron, Boccaccio.
many more.

[Dori]

I was going to mention On the Origin of Species by C. Darwin, but I see it has been mentioned more than once already.

[Dark Muse]

Most the things I would have said have already been mentioned.

When I first read this the books that immediately came to mind were

Sidhartha,
Paradise Lost
The Divine Comedy.

All of which others have already said.

I do not know if these have changed peoples thought all over the world, but a couple that I would mention that I think have challenged the way people think would be:

To Kill a Mokingbird, by Harper Lee
Frankenstein , by Mary Shelley

[metal134]

The Art of War

[Dr Jekyll]

What about the Bible?


Yes the Bible is the very book that changed not only the philosophies of many people, but also inspired many great authors such as Milton and Goethe.

[Eryk]

The Centurions is the novel that gave us "The Ticking Time Bomb Scenario (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticking_time_bomb)", popularized in the TV series 24. It is a common justification for torture.

Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Centurions_%28novel%29)


As American involvement in the Vietnam War increased, it was studied by American officers and Special Forces soldiers. The book regained currency with the onset of the Global War on Terrorism and the insurgency phase of the Iraq War. Since then, it has often been quoted or analyzed in works on counter-insurgency. Some individuals who have either publicly praised The Centurions or quoted it in their own work include:

* Bernard Fall, French war correspondent
* Alistair Horne, British historian
* Robert D. Kaplan, American writer
* Barry McCaffrey, U.S. Army general
* Ralph Peters, U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and writer
* David Petraeus, U.S. Army general
* Lewis Sorley, author of A Better War
* James Stockdale, U.S. Navy vice admiral and Medal of Honor recipient
* Roger Trinquier, French army colonel
* Anthony Zinni, U.S. Army general

[LitNetIsGreat]

In a sense, every book has the power to change and shape thought and behaviour. So, all of them!

[JBI]

Discourse on the Method, Rene Decartes
Beyond Good and Evil, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Will to Power, Frederick Nietzsche
Ulysses, James Joyce
In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust.
Das Kapital, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx
The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin
Selected Works, Sigmund Freud
Short Stories, Anton Chekhov
Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges
Utopia, Thomas Moore
The Divine Comedy, Dante
The Decameron, Boccaccio.
many more.


Wow, totally didn't remember making the list - how the hell did Borges, Proust, or Joyce really make it that high up? Confucius, Petrarch, hell, even Lorenzo Valla who pretty much kicked off renaissance thought. Could've thrown in 300 Tang poems, or Chu-Ci too, just to add a little more flavor, as with the Mahabarhata, or The Tale of Genji - many great choices, now that I think about it - the power of some texts is unquestionable.

Though, in all honesty, I think the mediocre letter from Columbus to Isabella saying that he found land is more influential - there's a problem then - influence doesn't mean quality.

[dfloyd]

have to be books. I agree with Das Kapital and the Origin of Species. I don't think any fictional work had a hand in changing human thought except for other writers. There are many examples I can think of, and a few of these are:
The writings of Thomas Jefferson, especially th American Declaration of Indpendence; The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine; and the Social Contract by Rousseau.

[mal4mac]

.... I agree with Das Kapital and the Origin of Species. I don't think any fictional work had a hand in changing human thought.

What about the Bible? :nod:

[prendrelemick]

Aristotle should be up there somewhere. He changed the way we look at the world.

[Kafka's Crow]

In a sense, every book has the power to change and shape thought and behaviour. So, all of them!

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Angels and Demons
The Bourne Identity
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
The Carpetbaggers

On a serious note:

The Odyssey
The Holy Bible
The Holy Qura'an
The Destruction of Philosophy by al Ghazali
The Destruction of Destruction (of Philosophy) by Ibn i Rushd (Averroes)
On the Origin of Species by Darwin
Ulysses by Joyce
All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque

[isidro]

I wondering if Harry Potter was a joke, a typo or what?

My dearest friends I LOVE this idea for a thread, I love that someone remembered the founding documents of this nation and here are some we might have missed.

95 theses of Martin Luther
The Diary of Anne Frank
Republic by Plato
Histories of Herodotus
and for the USA specifically we definitely cannot forget
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

I don't always subscribe to threads but definitely subscribing to this one!

[sadparadise]

Origin of Species would have to be up there with The HOLY Bible....And how about the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu?

[Three Sparrows]

The Bible, of course, and the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution. I don't know about the rest of the world, but all three sure were important to American thought.:nod:

[mona amon]

Hmm, there must be thousands.

As a student of Economics (when I was in college), I'd like to add -

The Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money - John Maynard Keynes

The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

[mal4mac]

As a student of Physics (when I was in college), I'd like to add -

Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

Newton's Principia

Einstein's Principles of Relativity (or the papers therein...)

[Inka]

well, I'm more simple)
1) the Bible for children :)
2) Pushkin's fairy-tales
3) Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tales
4) fairy-tales from all over the world
5) Martian's Chronicles by Bradbury)

[OrphanPip]

Well for biology:

Systema Naturae by Linnaeus, one of the first books to classify humans as animals and describe the inter-relatedness of living things. It also established the system of latin taxonomy for naming species that has continued to be used today.

The Origin of Species by Darwin for obvious reasons.

Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature by Thomas Huxley, the first application of evolutionary theory to human beings. Huxley was a contemporary and early supporter of Darwin. His work was continued in Darwin's Descent of Man.

Evolution: The Modern Synthesis by Julian Huxley, the first clear identification and integration of genetics with natural selection to create the ground work for the modern theory of evolution.

[blazeofglory]

The books that have changed me are the Mahabharata more than anything else and this is the most beautiful left to we mortals on earth. Any mortal can attain immortality if he or she goes thru this book deeply. I bet no one goes un-transformed if he or she goes thru this great encyclopedic classic. This book is matchless.

The other book next to it in measure is the Prophet by Khalil Gibran. I read this book many times and I read so many books by Khalil and I read them as reservoirs of inspirations.

Siddhartha is also a book of inspiration to me and one book that once transmuted me was Resurrection by Tolstoy.
Now the Brothers Karamazov is something that I find now transforming.

[Red-Headed]

I think that Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life would have been one of the most influential books of all time!

No one has mentioned J.S. Mill's On Liberty. I think that this & his other essays have been very influential. Possibly bordering that of Marx.