Can a book impact an entire generation?
Can stories created centuries ago still find
a home in the fast-paced life of the modern
world?
Well, sometimes all you need are a few well-written
books to inspire change.
And while any good book can feel life-altering,
there are some truly remarkable books out
there that have changed the course of human
history.
From scientific discoveries and creative minefields
to stories that capture the horrors of war,
some books have left the world with a deep
impression that doesn’t seem to be going
away any time soon.
Here are some of the books that have changed
the world.
Aesop’s fables by Aesop
Have you ever wondered who came up with the
classic stories of ‘The Ant and The Grasshopper’
or ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf?’
Or do you consider them as a part of the public
oral tradition, with nobody to claim their
origin?
Well, turns out that both these stories, along
with many other classic children stories,
can be traced back to Aesop, who lived as
a slave in ancient Greece between 620 to 564
BCE.
It is not clear whether Aesop compiled these
stories or wrote them.
Whatever the case may be, it is undeniable
that these morality tales, often involving
animals, have shaped countless childhoods
all around the globe.
Despite cultural or language barriers, Aesop’s
fables like ‘The Tortoise and The Hare,’
and ‘The Fox and The Crow,’ among many
others, are known all over the world to this
day.
Their continued popularity throughout the
centuries has undoubtedly proven that slow
and steady wins the race.
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir sat down to explore ‘What
is a woman?’ through her books and inadvertently
became a birthing point for the second wave
of feminism.
Admired by many and reviled by many more,
The Second Sex boldly claims that man is always
considered the default, and woman is understood
only in relation to man.
This book was so controversial at the time
that The Vatican even put it under its List
of Prohibited Books.
Kind of makes you want to read it even more,
doesn’t it?
The Second Sex was a significant breakthrough
in feminist philosophy.
It went beyond the property and voting rights
advocacy put forth by the first wave of feminism
and instead explored women and their historical
oppression through a much more personal lens.
Hiroshima by John Hersey
The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki brought the entire world to a
stand-still, by showcasing the immense destruction
they could cause within moments.
But at the time, the destruction inflicted
was only limited to numbers and statistics
in newspapers.
In 1946, John Hersey decided to change that.
He wrote a 30 thousand word article for the
New Yorker about six of the atomic bomb survivors
and the fateful day through their eyes.
And it wasn’t until people in the West read
this New Yorker article that they understood
for the first time not what happened to the
cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but to the
people living in them.
His article, later published as a book, brought
the human aspects of this event to light.
And many readers wrote to the New Yorker,
expressing their horror and shock at what
ordinary people like doctors, priests, and
mothers had to endure due to the bombings.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
In 1962, when Rachel Carson published a book
about the effects of synthetic pesticides
like DDT on bird population, she didn’t
know it would eventually end up saving the
Bald Eagle from extinction in the continental
U.S.
She simply reintroduced the scientific findings
on the matter, which weren't new to the scientific
community at the time.
But to the general public, the bleak future
and conclusions pointed out by the book were
a stark revelation.
Less than a year after the publication, she
was testifying against pesticides in front
of the Senate subcommittee.
She said, “Our heedless and destructive
acts enter into the vast cycles of the earth
and in time return to bring hazard to ourselves.”
Rachel Carson’s book set a lot of actions
in motion, from the formation of the Environmental
Defense Fund (EDF) to making stricter environmental
laws.
Silent Spring reached people’s hearts in
a way few other scientific books had, pioneering
a modern environmental movement for the 20th
century.
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Anne Frank was forced to go into hiding along
with her family members to escape the Nazi
terror that loomed over them in the Netherlands
during the Second World War.
Having to spend all of her time in close quarters
with so many people, Anne turned to writing
in her diary to escape the boredom that each
day brought.
She began to jot down not only her experiences
as a Jew in a Nazi regime but also the typical
teenage hopes and aspirations she felt.
Years later, when her diaries were discovered,
their significance was only heightened by
the fact that Anne Frank had passed away in
a concentration camp after they were discovered,
with her father as the only surviving member
of the family.
Anne Frank’s diary is considered to be one
of the most important documents from the Second
World War.
L
Her adolescent perspective and writing make
her experience of the war terrifyingly concrete,
and you are left haunted by her last entry
on August 1, 1944, knowing now that she would
never be able to write again.
On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural
Selection of the Preservation of Favoured
Races in the Struggle for Life, by Charles
Darwin
While most changes and discoveries in science
take a while to filter down to the public,
the book that Charles Darwin wrote on evolution
shook the beliefs of the people to the very
core.
It was a time when much of scientific knowledge
and public perception of it was saturated
and limited by religious beliefs.
Darwin’s book about the survival of the
fittest and how plants and animals evolve
as a response to their environment was a sensationally
dangerous and innovative idea.
The impact of this is clearly seen, as his
works have created a strong foundation for
the understanding of evolutionary biology
and other sciences, bringing into the debate
the credibility of creationism.
Charles Darwin gave the people, and the sciences,
a revolutionary discourse through his observation
of plant and animal life, and also a rational
alternative to the biblical stories of Adam
and Eve with their apple.
Have you read any life-changing books yet?
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