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Books That Shaped America
- mmanfrin 11y agoA lot of these are in the public domain, would be a good candidate for a mass torrent of ebooks.
- javert 11y ago> in the public domain ... and for everything else, there's the library. :)
- ild 11y agoBittorent County Library System.
- Turing_Machine 11y agoMany are on Project Gutenberg.
- civilian 11y agoDo we really need another re-hashing of the books we were required to read in high school? I'm just tired of hearing about these titles. I don't feel a strong heritage connection to them. It's stupid how they are repeatedly brought up, and how loving these worn-out books is seen as being 'literary'. In the same way that generals are always fighting the last war, high school english is always sharing the profound books from the last cultural paradigm shift.
- joelgrus 11y agoNo SICP?
- ommunist 11y agoNo PIHKAL?
- ommunist 11y agoTo those downvoting me. Are you denying that works of Leary and Shulgin shaped America as we know it today?
- octonion 11y agoAtlas Shrugged shaped America?
- jsprogrammer 11y agoOften cited as the second most influential book, after the Bible, by members of congress.
- octonion 11y agoThat's a new phenomena, and wven so it can hardly be said to have "shaped America". If you disagree, in what ways has it done so?
- gpvos 11y agoThe "second most influential" claim originates from 1994, source: http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/books/rand/atlas/faq.html#Q6.4 http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/books/rand/atlas/faq.html#Q6.4 I think big companies have shaped American culture a lot. Here's something from 2002 about Rand's influence, but Googling around easily turns up more: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2002-09-23-ayn-rand_x.htm http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/20...
- gutnor 11y agoYet the Bible is not in the list. Edit: Oh, I get it - the Bible is not written by an American so it cannot make it into the list of American books. Could have used a hint with the downvote.
- fit2rule 11y agoKicked off entirely new waves of greed and selfishness all over the country, but .. most especially of all .. on Wall Street. I'd say it had an impact, most definitely.
- enraged_camel 11y agoLooks like you got downvoted by mindless Randroids. Let me counter that a bit. And yes, Atlas Shrugged has had a tremendously harmful impact on America, specifically its business culture. It's basically The Bible for capitalism, except instead of worshipping god, you worship the so-called "captains of industry" (aka "job creators").
- hal9000xp 11y agoAs expected my favourite book Atlas Shrugged is in this list. It sad that her ideas is quite unpopular among general public. And as a consequence Europe and even US go towards socialism these days.
- octonion 11y agoAh, yes, the masses are stupid parasites and the elite few (of whom of course the reader fantasizes he belongs to) are responsible for all that's good in the world. I wonder why people have a problem with it.
- adventured 11y agoRand never indicates the American masses (your word, not hers) are stupid parasites, nothing even remotely of the sort in fact. She describes the masses as being devoured and harmed by the parasites, which are feeding off of them. This is true in Atlas Shrugged, Anthem, We The Living, and in her ~60 years of non-fiction writings. If you've read her books, it's impossible to have missed this, she's extraordinarily clear about it and goes to great lengths to spell it out for the reader step by step, both in terms of ideology and in real world effects.
- inscrutablemike 11y agoYou, who have actually read her work and given it an honest moment's thought, have been down voted by people who don't viciously know far more than you do about her work without the humdrum necessity of actually having read it.
- ild 11y agoIt sad that her ideas are too popular among general public. And as a consequence US and even Europe go towards something unpalatable these days.
- WildUtah 11y agoMiss Rand's ethics and politics are far more widely influential than in 1957, both among intellectuals and the general public. Entrepreneurialism, startup culture, modern self-esteem, and individualism have prospered along with the cultural changes Rand was a part of far beyond what seemed possible when that book was written. And the Western nations are nowhere near socialism. In the 1950s tax rates topped out around 90%, banks had a stranglehold on capital guaranteed by state run cartels, and you needed a license from a state mandated monopoly to even connect to a telecom network which they would grant rarely at their pleasure if they liked what you might do with it. You couldn't carry money through most countries in person or via a bank and trade often required renting a politician to get permission. People forget how good they have it today.
- enedil 11y agoWhere is "Slaughterhouse-Five"?
- nemo44x 11y agoSeriously. I know lists like this are always subjective and there's some great (and awful literature, but mainly great) in this list. But omitting "Slaughterhouse-Five" not only for its content but the post modern aesthetic (which was a big deal at the time) it used, is confusing. And although I wouldn't expect it, there should be some Bukowski on this list too. Also, Gravity's Rainbow?
- cafard 11y agoI don't agree with civilian's post, but I think that he is onto something. Once you get past Noah Webster and Benjamin Spock, the shaping effect is hard for me to see. The Education of Henry Adams includes some interesting chapters, though it is not nearly Adams's best work: yet what in America has it shaped other than the occasional class reading list? Similarly there are fine and complex works of literature that few have read. Take a poll at the bus stop or the coffee shop and see how many people can quote you five lines out of North of Boston, Spring and All or Howl. (I can do maybe one from Howl and almost certainly the number in it is wrong" "America, when will you become worthy of your two million Trotskyites?") Moby Disk is a fine novel, but how many have read it through; no doubt The Sound and the Fury is also, but it defeated me at an age when I read a lot of Faulkner, and I haven't been back.
- scottjad 11y agoI thought maybe the Book of Mormon would be on the list since it spawned one of the largest American-born religious movements and contributed to much of the settlement of the western US. I don't see any religious books on the list though.
- gtk40 11y agoYeah, I was surprised to not see any religious books. That's a good one I hadn't thought of. I was thinking of Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, one of the most popular books ever written by American and probably the most owned book in the country for an era.
- jg2 11y agoEarth Abides should be on this list.
- dandare 11y agoIt's a pity the list contains only American authors - that makes the list only half useful.
- pionar 11y agoHow so? The list is only useful in the sense that it gives someone who wants to explore the progression of American culture(s) through the years a starting point.
- capcah 11y agoThe title should be "American Books that shaped America". The Capital not being included in that list is akin to the Catholic church leaving the Luteran bible outside a list of influential works.
- ojbyrne 11y agoI think you're right, and it must be because this is from the Library of Congress, which is a repository of books published in the US. A slightly less contentious example would be de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America
- pionar 11y agoIt took me a second to know what book you were referring to. I've never seen it called that. Every mention I've ever seen of it (and I live in the US), it's Das Kapital.
- Turing_Machine 11y agoIf we're going with non-American books that shaped America, John Locke would have a much better claim than Karl Marx, given that Locke's ideas had a profound influence on the American form of government.
- tokenadult 11y agoThe Library of Congress put up this list of books that shaped America. I am an American of American descent since before the Revolution, and I have certainly read much less than half of these. The Library notes that this list is intended to spark discussion, so I'm glad that discussion has already begun here. My wild guess about the very most influential book is the King James ("Authorized") English-language translation of the Bible (not on the list, which apparently focuses on books published in America). I think Thomas Paine's Common Sense (1776) (which I have read, and which relies heavily on the Bible for its argument) was also very influential.
- Turing_Machine 11y agoThere are definitely some odd choices on there. An obscure dime novel by Louisa May Alcott? How did that "shape America"? Her Little Women deserves a place on the list, certainly, but I'm not sure about this one.
- tvm 11y agoI'm fan of Thoreau and I live in Europe. I don't understand how exactly he shaped America? During the "Walden" period he lived simple, frugal life and invested his time into things he cared about (eg., measuring the depth of the Walden pond in winter). After his crops were ready for the harvest, he took them to the city and sold them with minimal effort, being fascinated by the fact that he didn't have to do almost anything, while he enjoyed all the luxuries of sensible, spiritual life. He wasn't only author that did such things, but the society really never cared or cares. Thoreau is forgotten, but for me, at least during his Walden period - he was a proper "hacker". I'm quite sure that he would condemn the mark of being one of these who shaped the America (or world), because this is not what he wanted.
- pionar 11y ago> I don't understand how exactly he shaped America? You answered that right below. That way that he lived is something that a lot of Americans dream of (myself included), just to have a little plot of land all to yourself and be with nature for a while. > Thoreau is forgotten Maybe in Europe, but not here. Thoreau is seen as having outlined a very idyllic life, especially for modern times, of living semi-lazily "off the grid". > I'm quite sure that he would condemn the mark of being one of these who shaped the America (or world), because this is not what he wanted. Such is the life of a reclusive artist :) N.B. - Walden Pond is not some mystical place out in the middle of nowhere, it's just outside of Concord, NH[0], site of one of the first battles of the American Revolution just 70 years prior. So, while it was idyllic, it was not like Thoreau was that far away from civilization. The middle of Concord is less than 1.5 miles (2.4km) away from the north shore where Thoreau lived. [0] - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Walden+Pond,+Concord,+MA+01742 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Walden+Pond,+Concord,+MA+0...
- tvm 11y agoI know that they maintain a nice museum over there. Thoreau's books were translated into most European languages and frankly, his writing influenced me a lot during my early twenties.
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- gadders 11y agoHow long until someone turns this into a facebook quiz? "Click to see how many of the books that shaped America you have read." (12, for the record)