There is nothing new under the Sun. And so, it could be said, that if people bothered to read the old books, then there would be nothing for new writer's to do. However, this is not the case, and even were it so, Hermeneutics would argue that at the least, writer's through the ages would always have the task at hand of interpreting what has been written and handed down through the ages to the perspective of a new generation. However, the question at hand, is of the ten greatest books that have been handed down through the ages?
How then are we to determine this? By it's prose, it's content? I would suggest that it is through it's impact on the whole of society, both to it's generation, and those following. Hemingway, once suggested of Shakespeare, that all eyes point in the same direction, it is genius that steps to where all others point. So this is will be the guide to determine the greatest books of all time.
1) The Book The Qur'an often refers to the People of the Book, which is why I have chosen this name. Included in this would be the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur-an. I am sure this will be entirely unsatisfactory to many people, who will refute one, and accept another. That is precisely why I have combined them. They together form the Belief system of the Religions of the West, and as such, their Histories, and impact on human society are inexorably linked.
2) The I-Ching The Book of Changes can be traced back to about 2800 B.C. to the legendary Fu Xi. As such it can be seen as the most fundamental Text of Taoism, influencing the Three great Wise-men of the East; Lao-Tzu, Buddha, and Confucius. Together, this forms the basis of Eastern Mysticism, or what is sometimes referred to as Synchronicity. The fundamental belief that things are linked because they share common spiritual energy
3) The Dialogues of Plato It has been said that all of western philosophy is derived from Plato. There is much truth to this. When the philosopher divided thought into the divisions of the world of perception and that of the world of the absolute idea, everything changed. These were not actually new ideas in themselves, these divisions can be seen in the writings of Heraclitus, who argued that the only truth is in change, and Parmenides who argued that the Universe is a constant without change. Thousands of years later, Kant divided these realms into what is considered Apriori and Aposteri knowledge, which would form the basic divisions of Idealism and Empiricism.
I considered adding Aristotle as an entry unto it's own, for taking a more methodical approach to his encyclopedia of human knowledge, however, he was ultimately chained to Plato's precept that knowledge was only attainable in the realm of ideas. A footnote should also be added to Diogenes Laertius for his careful preservation of the Pre-Socratic philosophers.
4) The Travels of Marco Polo This might be the most controversial book on the list. As far as historical documents are concerned, it is of less relevance than classics such as Plutarch's Lives, and The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons. However, as I have stated in my introduction, this is not a list derived from content, rather it is from the impact of the book on society. Marco Polo challenged the conventional thinking of Western Civilization. people began to question what they knew, and the dogma of the church, and began to search for new meaning in the course of Human Events as the result of this narrative of the events that shaped this Journey.
5) CopernicusThe first great insult of mankind. A generation following Marco Polo, Ockham led the transformation of western thought by challenging the concept of singularity and the universal. As such he suggested that a single instance of fire, was not the conception of fire. This was largely condemned as heretical thought. While the plague put a hindrance on things, it was not long after that Copernicus used Occam's razor to defy Ptolemy, by suggesting astronomy would make much more sense if the Sun were at the center of the Solar System.
6) The Origin of the Species Charles Darwin slides into the top ten with the second great insult of mankind. The theory of evolution. His book, written in 1859, sold out the very day of its publication. It has been expanded widely into sociological concepts since then, however, it should be noted that it was Herbert Spencer who coined the term Survival of the Fittest.
7) The Writings of Sigmund Freud The Third Great Insult of Mankind. The suggestion that the individual is not even the master of the conscious mind. Over the course of his writings, Freud separated the mind into three integrated systems, the Id, the Ego, and the Super-Ego. Through his exploration of Psychoanalysis the first major steps were taken into the field of psychology. His work was later expanded upon by his student, Carl Jung, who explored the collective unconsciousness, which was largely adopted in theory by Joseph Campbell, and also the concept of personality types, which is commonly utilized by the Myer-Briggs Typology Test.
8) The Federalist Papers The United States Constitution is one of the greatest documents ever written. Not to say that it is the greatest Constitution ever written, (I couldn't name a better one, however, I don't exclude the possibility) rather, it marked the beginning of the Great Experiment. A Government by the People, of the People, for the People. In many ways, as such, when the writer's of the constitution wrote a series of papers in it's defense, they borrowed ideas from many sources, from the liberalism of John Locke, to the arguments presented by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations.
9) The Special/General Theory of Relativity Einstein's classic theory has formed the cornerstone of modern physics. Much of the work was actually done centuries before, by Newton in 1666. There has been much criticism of Einsteins work, particularly in his failure to produce a unified fields theory. In recent years, the mantle has largely been taken up by Stephen Hawking.
10) Principia Mathemeticia Through-out time, one of the greatest dilemmas to knowledge has been in regards to the question of meta-physics. How can we know if an argument is based on solid logic, as opposed to subtle shifts of language and emphasis? This was the question that Russell and Whitehead at last found a solution to.
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