100 Books that Changed the World

Many books have become classics, must-reads or overnight publishing sensations, but how many can genuinely claim to have changed the way we see and think?

In 100 Books that Changed the World, authors Scott Christianson and Colin Salter bring together an exceptional collection of truly groundbreaking books - from scriptures that founded religions, to scientific treatises that challenged beliefs, to novels that kick-started literary genres. This elegantly designed book, first published in 2018 but updated with an exciting new cover, offers a chronological survey of the most important books from around the globe, from the earliest illuminated manuscripts to the age of the ebook publication.

Entries include: The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer (750 BC), Gutenberg Bible (1450s), The Quran (AD 609-632), On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Nicolaus Copernicus (1543), Shakespeare's First Folio (1623), Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Isaac Newton (1687), The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1776), The Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft (1792), On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (1859), Das Kapital, Karl Marx (1867), The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud (1899), The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank (1947), Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (1964), A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking (1988).

'An attractive, accessible testimony to the power of the written word'

Colin Salter is a prolific author of literary history. For Batsford he has written 100 Books that Changed the World, 100 Letters that Changed the World and 100 Children's Books that Inspire our World. He is the author of a biography of Mark Twain and is currently working on a history of the books in one family's threehundred-year-old library. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, dog and bicycle.Scott Christianson was a prize-winning author. His books included 100 Diagrams That Changed the World, Bodies of Evidence: Forensics and Crime and Freeing Charles: The Epic Struggle to Free a Slave on the Eve of the Civil War. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, Village Voice, and Newsday.

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