Martin Seymour-Smith

What are the one hundred most influential books ever written? Those works that have radically altered the course of civilization, whether they have embodied the religions practiced by millions (the Bible, the Koran), achieved the pinnacle of artistic expression (The Iliad and The Odyssey, Shakespeare's plays), pointed the way to scientific discovery of enormous consequence (Darwin's Origin of Species, Einstein's Special Theory), radically changed the thought of man about his very nature Freud's A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis and The Interpretation of Dreams, Hume's Treatise of Human Nature), or forever altered the global political landscape (Plato's Republic, Machiavelli's Prince)? Never before has one book attempted to identify and analyze the one hundred works that have most influenced human history. For each one (listed in chronological order), author Martin Seymour-Smith provides: - Historical background and overview, setting each text in its time - Little-known facts about the author and the creation of the work - A lively and stimulating discussion of the factors that warrant the book's inclusion among the one hundred - Detailed analysis of the effects of the work on our lives today The standard used by the author identifies those books that have most shaped our civilization-for better or worse. Therefore, Mao's Little Red Book and Marx's Kapital stand beside the New Testament and Mill's On Liberty. Through discussion and debate about the entries, readers will learn a great deal about the power of the written word. Among the works profiled: - Locke's Essay on Human Understanding - Orwell's 1984 - Bunyon's Pilgrim's Progress - Adam Smith's Wealth ofNations - Kant's Critique of Pure Reason - Thoreau's Walden - Paine's Rights of Man - Hobbes's Leviathan - Buber's I and Thou - Newton's Principia - Freidan's Feminine Mystique Here is a book that every literate person should read, one that entertains as it enlightens and

The History of Thought from Ancient Times to Today

The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written

Entries on approximately seven hundred British, American, and major foreign writers provide a biographical and critical guide to the literature of this century

Who's who in Twentieth-century Literature

A volume in the Writers and Their Work series, which draws upon recent thinking in English studies to introduce writers and their contexts. Each volume includes biographical material, an examination of recent criticism, a bibliography and a reappraisal of a major work by the writer.

Graves, Robert

The Guide to Modern World Literature is a reference book by Martin Seymour-Smith that aims to describe every important 20th-century author (as of 1985), in all languages, in an encyclopedic presentation. The book covers an estimated 2,700 authors and more than 7,500 titles. It contains a total of 33 chapters that treat all modern national literatures individually or in groups. African and Caribbean literature is treated collectively; so are the Baltic, French and Belgian, Indian and Pakistani, Jewish, Latin American, Scandinavian, and both Eastern and Western Minor Literatures. A chapter each is given to American, Arabic, Australian, British, Bulgarian, Canadian, Chinese, Czechoslovakian, Dutch, Finnish, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, New Zealand, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, South African, Spanish, Turkish, and Yugoslavian Literature.

Macmillan Guide to Modern World Literature

Discusses, country-by-country the best modern novelists, playwrights, poets and writers, looks at their most important works, and assesses their place in literature

Martin Seymour-Smith

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