Which book has "changed the world"?

Question

Apart from religious books like the bible, which book had a major impact on the evolution of mankind?

Answer 1

The dictionnary.

Answer 2

Das Kapital - by Karl Marx.
The book caused a revolution in Russia a few decades after it was published and set a whole new political system in place. This led to a big ideological division (Communist vs. Capitalist) which has had world-wide repercussions over several decades, and still persists to a large extent. The revolution triggered very strong feelings of mutual suspicion and hostility among sections of humanity ("cold war"), and huge sums of money, which could be much better deployed elsewhere, were spent in building nuclear arsenals, each side knowing fully well that these might never be used against the other.
If this is not "changing the world", what is?

Answer 3

The works of Shakespeare.

Though not technically "books," the impact of his plays are everywhere. He has to be one of the most quoted, most performed, most discussed and most reinvented playwrights of all time.

For many years of Western civilization, I think if families owned one book, it was a copy of the Bible. If they owned two, the second would be Shakespeare.

Sofi's got a good line of thinking though too. Before dictionaries were invented, there was no one set standard of written or spoken language. Once we all decided how words should be spelled, reading and writing became more understandable - if less creative. If you've ever tried to read Middle English, you'll know what I mean.

Answer 4

The Little Red Book Mao Zedong

Answer 5

Darwin's "Origin of the Species" seems like a pretty solid answer here. It not only provided a precursor to engaging nonfiction writing about the sciences, but also provided one of the most controversial theories in history - one still considered a theory to this day.

Answer 6

Animal Farm, by George Orwell

Answer 7

The Art of War

Answer 8

The Jungle

Answer 9

The Interpretation of Dreams by S. Freud.

Answer 10

George Orwell, 1984

“To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed.”

Answer 11

Shakespeare. They're not books, but it's five hundred years later, and his plays are still being written.