Books That Changed the World

Rating:
Summary: A must for history buffs who are limited by time.
Review: A classic that discusses 16 books that have changed the world. But it is also much more. It delves into the times that the books were published and shows how society was affected by the book. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and strongly recommend it to everyone interested in history and or historical people. How many people can honestly say that they know that Uncle Tom's Cabin is about? Sure the expression Uncle Tom is bandied about in the course of our society but what do you know about the person or the book where this and many more expression that live today arised. You will not waste money or time on this read. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Truly Outstanding. Good for a Lifetime of Reading.
Review: I bought this book used from a library, along with a dozen others, a decade ago without much thought of what I was buying. Wow! I ended up with a lifetime of excellent reading. I've since had this book at my bedside, off and on, for the last ten years. So much excellent information is packed into this book that you can keep coming back to it and learning the most important writings of civilization.

This book summarizes the works for you. With just a little reading you can say something like, "What Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity did was radically change our perspective of time and space, and matter and energy. He showed that all motion is relative, and that the velocity of light is independent of the motion of its source. The implications are profound. To illustrate..."

Or, "What Socrates means by his definition of love, as written in Plato's Symposium, is that love is the pursuit of the beautiful; a desire for the immortal though reproduction. This, at its highest state, is manifested in a generalized love of universal beauty - beautiful souls, thoughts, laws, institutions and the immortal afterlife."

Everyone needs to read these works, and here is a condensed way to do it. It's a small investment in your education.

Rating:
Summary: A must-read for every book lover.
Review: I have been reading an average of 2 books a month. Yet I throw most of them away after reading. This is one of a few books I keep in my library. And it is the third time I bought it because every time someone borrow the book, I never got it back. Books That Changed The World summarizes the influences of the great books to the way we believe in things, some of which we take it for granted now. Things like the solar system, gravitational force. I hardly give a five-star to any book reviews, but this one well deserves it.

Rating:
Summary: This book is a great primer of the classics!
Review: I recently had the pleasure of taking a class at Missouri Southern State College in Joplin, MO that used the Downs book as a textbook for the class! At that time, I had not read, nor even heard of many of the works Downs discussed. However, after reading his insightful summaries on these classics of political, social and economic history, I felt I owed it to myself to pick up the full length versions and devour them!

Rating:
Summary: This book is a great primer of the classics!
Review: I recently had the pleasure of taking a class at Missouri Southern State College in Joplin, MO that used the Downs book as a textbook for the class! At that time, I had not read, nor even heard of many of the works Downs discussed. However, after reading his insightful summaries on these classics of political, social and economic history, I felt I owed it to myself to pick up the full length versions and devour them!

Rating:
Summary: Most influential in the sciences and social sciences
Review: The sixteen books Downs chooses as having changed the world are : Machiavelli's The Prince, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Malthus' Essay on the principle of population, Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Karl Marx's Das Kapital, Alfred T. Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power Upon history, Halford Mackinder's The Geographical Pivot of history, The scum's Mein Kampf, Copernicus De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelsestium, William Harvey's De Motu Cordis, Newton's Principia, Darwin's Origin of the Species, Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, Einstein's Relativity ;The Special and General Theories.
This is a list which deliberately excludes religion philosophy and literature. Perhaps it should have been titled 'The Most Influential Books from the Sciences and Social Sciences' The book has a very interesting opening chapter explaining its reasons for choosing the books it has chosen. It claims that the books it has chosen have had lasting and permanent influence. It seems to me that claim goes a bit too far and some of these books clearly had a great historical impact at a certain time, and may or should not have an impact in the future.
In any case this is a very worthwhile book built around a most interesting idea. I am surprised that there are not more books close in theme to this one.

Rating:
Summary: greatest collection ever summized-9.5
Review: this is a history of the world in layman's terms books are weapons(like the authour says) and Mr.Downs has collected the critics best and put them on display for us to taste-test as it were. It's like walking into the Metropolitan Museaum of Art-and feasting your eyes on only the greatest of the greatest works, cream de la cream of the crop; by individual selected artists. He starts with Homer touches on HB Stowe and HD Thoureu and then expands on T.Paine, Karl Marx, Adam Smith and the like. Exquisite ballet-type preformance. This is a puree blend of all the finest thinkers thoughts ever assembled in less than 300 pages!!!