Mary Wollstonecraft, Stephen Hawking and Charles Darwin are jostling for the top spot on a line up of the top 20 academic books that changed the world. Put together by a panel of expert academic booksellers, librarians and publishers from a list of 200 titles submitted by U.K. publishers, the top 20 ranges from Wollstonecraft’s 1792 feminist manifesto A Vindication of the Rights of Woman , to Hawking’s exploration of the universe, A Brief History of Time , and Darwin’s transformative laying out of his theory of evolution , On the Origin of Species . The list has been unveiled in advance of Academic Book Week, which will run from November 9-16, with members of the public now being asked to vote online for their choice of the most influential academic book of all time .
As well as Hawking, Wollstonecraft and Darwin, the list also includes what organisers called “more surprising” contenders for the title of most influential academic book — two fictional works, in George Orwell’s novel about a dystopian future, Nineteen Eighty Four , and the Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
“One of the most interesting things about the list is that it calls into question how we define a book as academic, underlining the fact that when we consider the future of the academic book we must also question our own assumptions,” said Alan Staton, head of marketing at the Booksellers Association.
Some of the titles included are centuries old: Niccolò Machiavelli’s 16th century guide to political power The Prince ; Plato’s Republic ; Thomas Paine’s 18th century defence of the French revolution, The Rights of Man ;and Adam Smith’s 1776 economics classic The Wealth of Nations .
Others deal with more modern issues, with Edward Said included for Orientalism , his investigation into the way the west observes Middle Eastern and Asian culture. Rachel Carson is included for Silent Spring , a key environmental text first published in 1962; Richard Hoggart for his 1957 look at working-class culture and the changes brought by commercial forces, The Uses of Literacy , and John Berger for his 1972 look at art, Ways of Seeing .
Marx and Engels make the cut for The Communist Manifesto , and Immanuel Kant for his seminal 18th century Critique of Pure Reason . There are just four women on the list: Carson and Wollstonecraft, Germaine Greer, for her 1970 examination of the oppression of women, The Female Eunuch ; and Simone de Beauvoir, for her 1953 exploration of inequality The Second Sex .
“Only four women, but all feminist icons,” said Neil Smyth, senior librarian at Nottingham University’s faculty of arts and a member of the voting committee. “This list of academic books will lead to debate and controversy, but, more importantly, reading. All of these books are available in the University library where I work, and they will be available in libraries and bookshops around the country for people to discover and rediscover.”
The top 20 is completed with EP Thompson’s 1963 account of working class society from 1780 to 1832, TheMaking of the English Working Class ; Albert Einstein’s explanation of his general theory of relativity, The Meaning of Relativity ; and zoologist Desmond Morris’s 1967 look at man as a risen ape, The Naked Ape .
“This is a fascinating and salutary list for academics put together by people who work with academic books but who are not themselves academics, it reflects the reality of what a wider public sees as ‘academic’,” said Dr Samantha Rayner, principal investigator on the Academic Book of the Future project, a two-year initiative exploring the future of the academic book funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in collaboration with the British Library. “This may not be what academics agree with — it will be a controversial list — but will, we hope, provoke valuable discussion for the project about the nature and impact of academic books.” The winner of the public vote will be announced during November’s Academic Book Week, which will also see a series of events taking place around the UK.
©Guardian News & Media Ltd, 2015
