Related Books:
Melvyn Bragg, who hosts the terrific In Our Time program on BBC Radio, has put together a list of the twelve British books that have changed the world. The list is for a television series that he’ll be hosting. As an article in the Guardian explains, the most recent book on the list is from 1918, and there’s no fiction at all. What’s interesting about Bragg’s list is that they’re not so much books as they’re historical documents of political and scientific importance. The list:
- Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton
- Married Love by Marie Stopes
- The Magna Carta
- The Rule Book of Association Football
- On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
- On the Abolition of the Slave Trade by William Wilberforce
- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
- Experimental Researches in Electricity by Michael Faraday
- Patent Specification for Arkwright’s Spinning Machine by Richard Arkwright
- The King James Bible by William Tyndale and 54 Scholars Appointed by the King
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
- The First Folio by William Shakespeare
