The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin (1953) The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art by Kenneth Clark (1956)Ĭlark’s survey of the nude from the Greeks to Picasso foreshadows the critic’s towering claims for humanity in his later seminal work, Civilisation.Ģ8. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1955)īaldwin’s landmark collection of essays explores, in telling language, what it means to be a black man in modern America.Ģ7. The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life by Richard Hoggart (1957) This influential cultural study of postwar Britain offers pertinent truths on mass communication and the interaction between ordinary people and the elites.Ģ6. The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith (1958)Īn optimistic bestseller, in which JFK’s favoured economist promotes investment in both the public and private sectors.Ģ5. The Elements of Style by William Strunk and EB White (1959)ĭorothy Parker and Stephen King have both urged aspiring writers towards this crisp guide to the English language where brevity is key.Ģ4. This powerful study of loss asks: “Where is God?” and explores the feeling of solitude and sense of betrayal that even non-believers will recognise.Ģ3. The American physicist and philosopher of science coined the phrase “paradigm shift” in a book that is seen as a milestone in scientific theory.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S Kuhn (1962)
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Photograph: © The Peter Hujar Archive courtesy Pace MacGill GalleryĢ1. This classic of American advocacy sparked a nationwide outcry against the use of pesticides, inspired legislation that would endeavour to control pollution, and launched the modern environmental movement in the US. This influential, painstakingly compiled masterpiece reads as an anatomy of pre-industrial Britain – and a description of the lost experience of the common man.Ģ0. The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson (1963) The book that ignited second-wave feminism captured the frustration of a generation of middle-class American housewives by daring to ask: “Is this all?”ġ9. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963) The groundbreaking collection, revolving around the poet’s fascination with her own death, established Plath as one of the last century’s most original and gifted poets.ġ8. The American novelist’s early essays provide the quintessential commentary on the 1960s. Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag (1966) The Double Helix by James D Watson (1968)Īn astonishingly personal and accessible account of how Cambridge scientists Watson and Francis Crick unlocked the secrets of DNA and transformed our understanding of life.ġ6. This passionate account of how rock’n’roll changed the world was written with the wild energy of its subject matter.ġ5. Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn (1969)
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The Australian feminist’s famous polemic remains a masterpiece of passionate free expression in which she challenges a woman’s role in society.ġ4.
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970) Sacks’s moving account of how, as a doctor in the late 1960s, he revived patients who had been neurologically “frozen” by sleeping sickness reverberates to this day.ġ3. This raw, tender, unguarded collection transcends politics, reflecting Heaney’s desire to move “like a double agent among the big concepts”. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)Īn intoxicating renewal of evolutionary theory that coined the idea of the meme and paved the way for Professor Dawkins’s later, more polemical works. This polemical masterpiece challenging western attitudes to the east is as topical today as it was on publication.Ī compelling sense of urgency and a unique voice make Herr’s Vietnam memoir the definitive account of war in our time.ġ0. Tom Wolfe raised reportage to dazzling new levels in his quest to discover what makes a man fly to the moon.
The theoretical physicist’s mega-selling account of the origins of the universe is a masterpiece of scientific inquiry that has influenced the minds of a generation. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1988) This remarkably candid memoir revealed not only a literary talent, but a force that would change the face of US politics for ever.Ħ. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (1995) These passionate, audacious poems addressed to Hughes’s late wife, Sylvia Plath, contribute to the couple’s mythology and are a landmark in English poetry.ĥ. Naomi Klein’s timely anti-branding bible combined a fresh approach to corporate hegemony with potent reportage from the dark side of capitalism.
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