100 Books that Changed the World
A thought-provoking chronological journey through the world's most influential books.
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 timeline of three millennia of human thought distilled in print, from the earliest illuminated manuscripts to the age of ebooks and audiobooks.
Entries include:
• The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer (750 BC)
• Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623)
• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)
• The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank (1947)
• Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (1958)
• A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking (1988)
For literary lovers and rebellious readers, this book offers a fascinating overview of world history through the books that influenced and changed it.
Scott Christianson (1947–2017) was a prize-winning author. His books included 100 Diagrams That Changed the World 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, Village Voice, and Newsday.
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 Speeches that Changed the World. He is the author of a biography of Mark Twain and a history of the books in one family’s three-hundred-year-old library. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, dog and bicycle.