A Short History of the World in 50 Books

by Daniel Smith

Overview

The book has a unique status as an emblem of human culture and civilization. It is a vessel for sharing stories, dispersing knowledge, examining the nature of our extraordinary species and imagining what lies beyond our known world. Books ultimately provide an invaluable and comprehensive record of what it means to be human.

This volume takes a curated list of fifty of the most influential books of all time, putting each into its historical context. From ancient game-changers like the Epic of Gilgamesh, through sacred texts and works of philosophical rumination by the likes of Confucius and Plato, via scientific treatises, historic ‘firsts’ (like the first printed book) and cultural works of enduring impact (think Shakespeare, Cervantes and Joseph Heller), these are volumes that are at once both products of their societies and vital texts in molding those same civilizations.

It would take a lifetime and more to read and absorb all of them. But this volume allows you to become ridiculously well read in just a fraction of the time. This isn’t a celebration of the canon, it’s about the books that have changed how we think and live – and which have changed the course of history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789294088
Publisher:	Michael O'Mara Books
Publication date:	02/01/2023
Series:	A Short History of the World
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.08(w) x 7.01(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Daniel Smith is a non-fiction author and editor who has written across a range of subjects, including politics, economics and social history. He is the author of The Little Book of Big Ideas: 150 Concepts and Breakthroughs that Transformed History and the 'How to Think Like ...' series for Michael O'Mara Books, which has been published in 20 languages and sold over 450,000 copies worldwide. He is also a long-time contributor to The Statesman's Yearbook, the geo-political guide to the world that celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2013. He lives in London with his wife and two children.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction
‘In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time;
the articulate audible voice of the Past,
when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.’

Thomas Carlyle, ‘The Hero as a Man of Letters’ (1841)
What is a book? Technically, we might say it is any set of printed pages that are fastened together inside a cover. But what, then, of all those books that you can read on your electronic device? And how do we account for those ancient texts perhaps inscribed on a stone tablet or even the bones of a sacrificial animal? We have a rich literary history that far pre-dates the technology that gave us paper, let alone the wherewithal to bind that paper together and stick a cover on it. Better, then, to adopt a much broader definition – the book is a written work of fiction or non-fiction created with the intention that it should be read by others. On what material it was originally set down hardly matters.
     We are the only species, of course, to produce books: an object that encapsulates the ideas and imagination of its author or authors. The book has a unique status as an emblem of human culture and civilization. It is a vessel for sharing stories, dispersing knowledge, examining the nature of our extraordinary species and imagining what lies beyond our known world. As Carlyle suggests, books ultimately provide an invaluable and comprehensive record of what it means to be human. Sometimes, they may even give us a window onto the divine. As Jorge Luis Borges once wrote: ‘I have always imagined Paradise as a kind of library.’
     This volume takes a curated list of fifty of the most influential books of all time, putting each into its historical context. From ancient game-changers like the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad, through sacred texts and works of philosophical rumination by the likes of Confucius and Plato, via scientific treatises, historic ‘firsts’ (such as the first printed book) and cultural works of enduring impact (think Shakespeare, Cervantes and Joseph Heller, these are volumes that are at once both products of their societies and vital texts in moulding those same civilizations.
     What this selection isn’t is a celebration of the literary canon, a reaffirmation of the ‘best’ books from the past. You will find no Austen or Dickens here, nor Melville or Dostoyevsky or García Márquez. There is Shakespeare and Cervantes and Tolstoy, but not because they are somehow ‘better’ than those others. Rather, this collection aims to select books that reflect the passage of human history – mostly our progress and occasionally our regression too. Most not only reflect, though, but themselves changed how we think and live – not merely symbols of history but agents of it. By definition, they are ‘important’ works and, in broad critical terms, ‘great’ works too. But this book is not concerned with which works are the greatest of all – there are plenty of other volumes that try to figure that out, and good luck to them.
     Inevitably, making a selection such as this is highly subjective. It is a process as much defined by omission as by what is chosen. In selecting fifty titles, we can only hope to dip our toe (our little toe at that) into the vast pool of literature from ages gone by. In doing so, it is folly to make any claim for definitiveness. Instead, we are playing a literary game. Which of the fifty choices are indisputable? Which are taking a place better deserved by some other work? Everyone will have their own ideas. In the end, it matters little that we all agree. More important is that by turning our minds to the question in the first place, we might meet some unfamiliar works, revisit some old favourites, and gain some insight and pleasure in the process.
     Books are brilliant. They are building blocks of our collective identity. They are monuments to our civilization. They are gateways to new worlds. We cannot explore them enough. Carl Sagan summed it up elegantly: ‘Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.’

Table of Contents

Part I: The Ancient World

The Epic of Gilgamesh • Author unknown ........................... 17
Tao Te Ching • Laozi ............................................................... 22
Iliad • Homer .......................................................................... 26
Aesop’s Fables • Aesop .............................................................. 32
The Torah • Moses .................................................................. 37
The Art of War • Sun Tzu ....................................................... 40
Analects • Confucius ............................................................... 45
The Republic • Plato ................................................................ 50
History of Animals • Aristotle ................................................. 56
The Elements • Euclid ............................................................. 61
Bhagavad Gita • Vyasa ........................................................... 65
On the Subject of Cooking • Marcus Gavius Apicius ........... 71
Geographia • Claudius Ptolemy ............................................. 75

Part II: The Middle Ages

The Qur’an • Associates of the Prophet Muhammad ......... 83
Book of Kells • Jerome of Stridon
and unidentified monks ......................................................... 87
The Pillow Book • Sei Shonagon ............................................ 92
The Tale of Genji • Murasaki Shikibu ................................... 98
Magna Carta • Stephen Langton ........................................ 103
The Divine Comedy • Dante Alighieri ................................ 108
Jikji • Baegun ........................................................................ 113
Revelations of Divine Love • Julian of Norwich ................. 118
The Gutenberg Bible • Various / Johannes Gutenberg .... 123
Madrid Codex • Unknown ................................................. 128

Part III: The Early Modern Age

The Four Classic Novels • Various ........................................ 135
The Prince • Niccolò Machiavelli ........................................ 140
The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote
of La Mancha • Miguel de Cervantes ............................. 145
The Complete Works • William Shakespeare ................... 150
Dialogue Concerning the Two
Chief World Systems • Galileo Galilei ............................. 155
Principia • Isaac Newton ..................................................... 160
On the Social Contract; or, Principles of
Political Right • Jean-Jacques Rousseau ......................... 164
A Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson .. 169
Common Sense • Thomas Paine ........................................... 175
The Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith .................................. 180

Part IV: The Nineteenth Century

Faust • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ................................ 187
‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ • Edgar Allan Poe ...... 191
On Liberty • John Stuart Mill .............................................. 196
On the Origin of Species • Charles Darwin ......................... 201
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl • Harriet Jacobs .......... 207
Das Kapital • Karl Marx ...................................................... 212
War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy ................................................ 216
The Interpretation of Dreams • Sigmund Freud .................. 220

Part V: 1900 Onwards

General Theory of Relativity • Albert Einstein .................... 229
The Diary of a Young Girl • Anne Frank ............................. 234
Nineteen Eighty-Four • George Orwell ............................... 239
The Second Sex • Simone de Beauvoir ................................. 245
Catch-22 • Joseph Heller ..................................................... 250
Silent Spring • Rachel Carson .............................................. 255
Why We Can’t Wait • Martin Luther King Jr ..................... 261
A Brief History of Time • Stephen Hawking ...................... 266
Long Walk to Freedom • Nelson Mandela ........................... 271