10 more influential books

[Brasil]

Actually, they are 12 books:


Vedas (All Schools of Thought from Ancient India has the Vedas as its base to agree or disagree)

I Ching (Since its origin until the Confucionism and the Neo-Confucionism the I-Ching was the most important book. Today, the I-Ching is still important for the biggest population of Earth)

Bible (The biggest best-selling ever, the importance of the Bible is its influence over the biggest religion in Earth)-

Odissey (Homer influenced almost all writers, philosophers and poets from Ancient Greece until today)

Republic (Maybe the most polemic and influential work of the classical greek philosophy)

Bhagavad Gita (Today, it is maybe the most influential book of Indian culture. India is the second biggest population of Earth, futhermore, the Bhagavad Gita is read by people from other cultures and not just from India)

Qur’an (Islamism is the second greatest religion of Earth)

On the Origin of Species (According to Sigmund Freud, Darwin inflicted the second wound in human narcissism)

The Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels inflicted the impact of their thought, they revealed the hidden exploitation, the invisible prison, they taught how to open your eyes and free the others)

Das Kapital (The historical and dialectical materialism influenced the sociology, antropology, philosophy, politic theory, economic theory, art, history, and other areas)

The Interpretation of Dreams (The revolution of thought and medicine. Freud changed the way we look to ourselves)

Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung or The Little Red Book (It is the second best-selling book of the world)


Now, make your top 10.

[mal4mac]

Hey come on you said 10!

Is theI Ching really that influential? Confucious

The Odyssey is important, but surely you could make a good case for the Iliad being more or equally important.

Does Marx deserve two books? Surely Das Kapital is the one. What about Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations - capitalism has surely had at least as much impact as Marxism!

Should India get two books? Drop Vedas, keep Gita?

Should Mao be on there? His work is derivative of Marx.

Shakespeare's Hamlet should be there, given Shakespeare's great influence on all subsequent writers (especially Freud!) In similar vein, perhaps Sophocles should be on there for his Oedipus cycle. This argment allows us tio drop Freud, as Bloom says he is derivetiave of Shakespreare (and to aklesser extent Sophocles).

What about Newton's Principia?

Surely at least one novelist should be on there: Cervantes - Don Quixote? Tolstoy - War & Peace/Anna Karenina?

The ten:

The Bible
The Koran
Homer - Iliad
Bhagavad Gita
Plato - Republic
Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
Newton - Principia
Darwin - Origin
Cervantes - Don Quixote
Shakespeare - Hamlet

[Brasil]

The Vedas influenced 4 of 7 Schools of Thought in Ancient India. The other 3 weren't "Vedic schools" but they came from a tradition that included the Vedas.

I-Ching is the base of Confucionism, Neo-Confucionism and other thoughts. Also, maybe as important as I-Ching, is the Tao Te Ching. However, I-Ching is one of the greatest best-selling books of all time. A lot of post-modern writers were influenced by I-Ching, as Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, etc.

I agree that Odissey and Iliad are the two very influent. It's hard to chose one of them.

The 2 books by Karl Marx are important and influent. Adam Smith? I don't agree. He was a very important economist before Marx, but after Marx the economical theory changed. Futhermore, marxism changed our view in politic, history, philosophy, art, antropology, sociology, education, rights, etc..

India has also Ramayana, Upanishads, Mahabarata, but I think Bhagavad Gita is a little more influent today. The Bhagavad Gita is part of Mahabarata, but the "Chant of the Lord" is usually read aparted from the rest.

The Little Red Book of Mao is the second best-selling book of all time. Think about the population of China. It's very influent if you consider number (more than 1 billion of Chineses) and if you consider all the world (not just the western world).

Shakespeare is very influent, sure... but Sigmund Freud is a revolutionary. Furthermore, psicanalysis is studied in areas as medicine, antropology, mass media researches, arts in general (including literature), pedagogy, philosophy...etc.

Newton? Why not Galileu? And what about Einstein? Anyway, that kind of literature is very specific for math students and scientists of nature. Can anyone read this kind of book?

Cervantes and Shakespeare could enter in top 15.

See the list of the best-selling books of all time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_selling_books

[The Comedian]

My list is mostly focused on the western world -- I simply don't know enough about world cultures to comment intelligently on textual influences from so broad a perspective.

10. How to Win Friends and Influence People -- Dale Carnegie
Buying and selling is as much a part of our lives as anything. And this book did more to shape that culture than any other.
9. Silent Spring -- Rachel Carson
There were books that address environmental concerns before this, but Carson's work put the idea that modern technology can seriously harm the natural world in front of society's eyes
8. Tales of Children and the Home -- The Brothers Grimm
Often our first exposure to story, parable, right and wrong. . . .and like first impressions, first stories are lasting.
7. Il Milione -- Marco Polo
Sure, a pretty face can launch a 1000 ships. So can a book filled with adventure, wealth, embellishment, and promise -- this one probably launched more ships than anything other than a beautiful woman.
6. Oxford English Dictionary
The biggest (or at least one of them) book of words -- now that's authority!
5. Action Comics #1 -- Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
The first stand-alone superhero comic with original content. This issue was the birth of a secular mythology and one of the greatest and under appreciated literary forms in the western world.
4. Oedipus Rex/Poetics -- Sophocles and Aristotle, respectively
I have to pair these two books because together they gave shape to modern drama, literary theory, psychology. . . . whether we rant about their failings, praise their insights hardly matters. That we have done and are still doing so speaks to the influence of these texts.
3. Elements -- Euclid
So it's more than one volume. . . . so it's more than 10 volumes. . .( ). But this book collected mathematical axioms and offered systems of logic and science that influenced mathematicians for centuries afterward.
2. Baby and Childcare -- Dr. Benjamin Spock
The most influential book on the care of infants and children. Spock's book revolutionized parenting in the way that Plato's Republic revolutionized western philosophy.
1. The Elements of Style -- Strunk and White
For better or for worse, it's still the most recognized book of English style around. And its influence on modern English expression can hardly be measured.

[Dinkleberry2010]

The key word is influential. What ten works have had the most influence. I would say:
The Bible, The Iliad, Plato's dialogues, The Koran, The Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's plays as a whole, Paradise Lost, Goethe's Faust, The Origen of Species, and a tie between Das Kapital and The Interpretaion of Dreams.

[Brasil]

Boccaccio's Decameron had a great impact in literature. We can not forget him.


Now, if we consider just poetry (lyric, epic and other kind of verse) I would propose the top 3 -

In the world:
Iliad/Odissey
Divine Comedy
Bhagavad Gita

In the western world only:
1- Dante Alighieri - Divine Comedy
2- Francesco Petrarca - Il Canzoniere
3- Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du Mal


In portuguese speaker's world:
1- Camões
2- Fernando Pessoa (and his heteronims)
3- Gonçalves Dias, Manuel du Bocage, Carlos Drummond, Manuel Bandeira, Castro Alves, João Cabral, Cesário Verde..?

[Red-Headed]

The 2 books by Karl Marx are important and influent. Adam Smith? I don't agree.

What about John Stuart Mill?

[Travis_R]

Just to spark conversation, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand may deserve a spot on this list. Not that I agree, but it is food for thought.

Wealth of Nations DEFINITELY deserves a spot on this list, as it created modern economics, including the free market and competition.

[mal4mac]

The Little Red Book of Mao is the second best-selling book of all time. Think about the population of China. It's very influent if you consider number (more than 1 billion of Chineses) and if you consider all the world (not just the western world).

Shakespeare is very influent, sure... but Sigmund Freud is a revolutionary. Furthermore, psicanalysis is studied in areas as medicine, antropology, mass media researches, arts in general (including literature), pedagogy, philosophy...etc.

Newton? Why not Galileo? And what about Einstein? Anyway, that kind of literature is very specific for math students and scientists of nature. Can anyone read this kind of book?

Shakespeare is the real revolutionary and Freud stole his best ideas. (It wouild take a book to explain this - Harold Bloom's "The Western Canon" is the book...)

Newton was the guy who tied everything together with his three laws of motion & law of Universal Gravitation. Galileo "just" provided a few pieces of the jigsaw. Newton wa sthe greatest influence on Einstein and all subsequent phycists because he was the first to develop a universal theory of a fundamenta force- you can't get more influential than that. Physics has influenced all of our lives (have you turned on a light switch recently?) So a physicist has to be in the top ten - and it has to be Newton. Charles van Doren in "The Joy of Reading" recommends the Principia to the common reader, although he recommends skipping parts...

Mao was influenced by Marx. What new ides did Mao bring to the table? Marx (indirectly) influenced those billions of Chinese, as well as all those Russians upon which Mao had no influence. Ergo, Marx is the greatest influence. In deciding on "greatest influence" you must go back to the source.

[Brasil]

Ok, about Marx and Mao I agree!


But don't talk about Harold Bloom! He's awful. No one cares for what he thinks.
Anyway, I read that book. But no academic professor or student gives importance to Bloom's thoughts.

Freud didn't stole from Shakespeare.
Freud wrote a philosophical and medical treat (science). Shakespeare didn't. Shakespeare wrote a play (theatre). There is a GREAT difference here. We can talk about the relationship between art and science, indeed, however see the two areas as equals is a big mistake.

Shakespeare stole Hamlet from François de Belleforest (the real genious behind Hamlet). Shakespeare just changed the name of Belleforest's text.

Read more about Shakespeare here:
http://www.online-literature.com/for...t=43739&page=4

Freud was directly influenced by Sophocles (on Oedipus circle). So, Sophocles could enter the top ten before Freud and Shakespeare. Is that correct? Not so far.

Freud read Sophocles, indeed. But Freud's theories was not based on greek plays! What kind of science would it be? Freud's work was strongly empiric. He saw cases. He made analisys and empirical studies. The relationship between the cases and the greek play is a "coincidence". Freud didn't intent to prove that Sophocles was right. Freud intent to see the empirical truth. Freud called it "Oedipus complex", but it is just a name. The complex is Freud's discovery, not Sophocle's. The name of the complex was taken from the play, but the discovery of the complex was taken from empirical reseaches made by Freud.

Today we undestand a little more about Hamlet and Oedipus. Thanks Freud for his analisys. But it is not the center of his studies.

Anyway, Sophocles deserves a place on top ten before Shakespeare.

About Galileu, Newton and Einsten - Newton continued the work of Galileu, as you know. And Galileu's math had influence over philosophy and literature too. Anyway, physics after Einsten became very different. In the physical studies today, Newton's math does not work anymore.

[JBI]

Shakespeare is the real revolutionary and Freud stole his best ideas. (It wouild take a book to explain this - Harold Bloom's "The Western Canon" is the book...)

Newton was the guy who tied everything together with his three laws of motion & law of Universal Gravitation. Galileo "just" provided a few pieces of the jigsaw. Newton wa sthe greatest influence on Einstein and all subsequent phycists because he was the first to develop a universal theory of a fundamenta force- you can't get more influential than that. Physics has influenced all of our lives (have you turned on a light switch recently?) So a physicist has to be in the top ten - and it has to be Newton. Charles van Doren in "The Joy of Reading" recommends the Principia to the common reader, although he recommends skipping parts...

Mao was influenced by Marx. What new ides did Mao bring to the table? Marx (indirectly) influenced those billions of Chinese, as well as all those Russians upon which Mao had no influence. Ergo, Marx is the greatest influence. In deciding on "greatest influence" you must go back to the source.

Have you read Mao? He isn't as simple as no new ideas - Marx may have influenced him, but if you read, for instance, his writing on Chinese topics, you will clearly see he is not just translating - find his essay on Bethune for instance, and you'll get my point - he is as much a part of a Chinese philosophical tradition as he is part of Russian, or Central European.


Seriously, stop floating nonsense that you scrap from other sources. Freud was as much an inventor as any - Harold Bloom only says he took it from Shakespeare because Harold Bloom believes that Freud, at least on some level, is right, which he isn't, given that his theories cannot be verified by any sort of evidence.





As for Brasil, and the rest of your comments on the Dao De Jing, it is almost comical how out of context, and flat out wrong your stuff is. Historically, Daoism has never been the basis of Confucianism, and the two political philosophies conflict with each other. Just read the final parts that deal with economic and governmental systems to get the idea - it's completely different, something of a Laissez-faire construction, rooted in a sense of nothingness.

This tied in with the Zhuangzi, which merges the Dao De Jing with other philosophical trends that supersede it, creates a culture that emphasizes the exact opposite of Confucianism - to Confucianism, education and ritual are central, to Daoism, non-action and simplicity, the natural (as is shown in Daoist Landscape painting, which features usually a large landscape, and a simple character (usually a man) at one with it), and the female. It merges the concepts of Yin-Yang and Wu-Wei (action through non-action) to create a sense of cultivation, whereas Confucius would seek to create a sort of "cultivation" through the exact opposite means.



As for the Dao De Jing not being influential as one poster has said, that is laughable. It even became curriculum for the state examination system under Empress Wu, which essentially kicked off the movement that would spawn all the famous Tang Poets. Throughout history it has been seen though - Qing Shi Huang Di's death from mercury can be attributed to it, for instance, as he was a cultural Daoist, and so can the deaths of 7 of 17 Tang Dynasty Emperors. But beyond that, Daoism has always been part of the culture and political force of China - the Emperor himself, for instance, though functioning in many ways as the embodiment of Confucianism, has a harem for the simple sake of increasing his longevity by absorbing Yin energy (through sexual intercourse), something which comes from the Zhuangzi, which is essentially a commentary on the Dao De Jing.

AS for the Dao De Jing on Confucianism, I think you are probably mixing it up with the Wu Jing (5 classics) which are the Confucian Canon. Guanzi and simply the period of the time would have seemed to be the foundation of Confucianism (the stress of harmony in contrast to the disorder of the Spring and Autumn period, as well as the Warring States Period that followed) as well as other texts dealing with history and ritual. In truth, the books seem the exact opposites.

As for the stories of Confucius and Laozi meeting - well, the same histories say that Laozi was born after his mother was pregnant by a dragon for 60 years, and was born with a beard, and lived for hundreds of years before going to India and becoming the first Buddha, so what are we to believe?


Please, it is often painful when people either read without understanding, or simply make posts without reading properly.

[Brasil]

JBI said: "Daoism has never been the basis of Confucianism, and the two political philosophies conflict with each other".

I never said the opposite, my friend. Read it right before accuse me

I said: "maybe as important as I-Ching, is the Tao Te Ching".

I mean, the two books are important for Chinese culture (and maybe the two deserve places in the top ten here), but I never said the two books were important for the same School of Thought.

I-Ching is the basis for Confucionism (Confucius)
Tao Te Ching is the basis for Taoism (Laozi or Lao Tsé)

Confucius call people for action, self-knowledge, tradition.
Laozi teaches the way of "no action", "no thought", "no law".

[JBI]

I-Ching is the base of Confucionism, Neo-Confucionism and other thoughts. Also, maybe as important as I-Ching, is the Tao Te Ching. However, I-Ching is one of the greatest best-selling books of all time. A lot of post-modern writers were influenced by I-Ching, as Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, etc.

That's right, you didn't...

[Brasil]

"I-Ching is the base of Confucionism, Neo-Confucionism and other thoughts...".

"...Also, maybe as important as I-Ching (for the top ten) is the Tao Te Ching (because the Tao Te Ching is the basis of Taoism)".

The age of Confucionism and Taoism was the highest point of the Chinese Thought.

[JBI]

"I-Ching is the base of Confucionism, Neo-Confucionism and other thoughts...".

"...Also, maybe as important as I-Ching (for the top ten) is the Tao Te Ching (because the Tao Te Ching is the basis of Taoism)".

The age of Confucionism and Taoism was the highest point of the Chinese Thought.

Again, when is this age? The Yi-Jing seems to have been most popular in the Song Dynasty, which is I think called "Neo-Confucianism". Daoism peaked in the Tang, arguably, but was the stat religion during the reign of the first four emperors of the Han, and was the foundation of the Yellow-Turban ideology, and has always been present.

In truth, after the Han, Confucius himself suffered a decline. Daoism, and later Buddhism were far more successful and prominent up until the Song, when Confucius was rehabilitated.

The reason though Confucius is historically given such a nice promotion is rooted in thick propaganda - true, it was the state "religion" in a sense for 2000 odd years, but in practical senses, it declined severely for very long periods, the most recent beginning in the late 19th early 20th century, when Confucius himself seems to have been rejected as, in a sense, holding back the country. We get these beautiful portraits of him today, because Confucius, for Hu Jintao and the PRC communist party wants to recast China as a "Scholarly country with a long tradition of core values, yet somehow modern and stable." Even then though, I think the Analects are pushed higher than the Yi Jing - the Yi Jing was probably the most popular because it was the most fun, but it is hardly as profound as it pretends to be.

Like I said, a giant fortune teller with complex levels of symbolism and commentary to complicate things.