The top 20 academic books that changed the world

List voted for by leading academic booksellers, librarians and publishers revealed ahead of Academic Book Week

October 14, 2015
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A list of the top 20 academic books that have changed the world, as voted for by academic booksellers, librarians and publishers, has been revealed.

From A Brief History of Time to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the list has been unveiled ahead of Academic Book Week, which takes place from 9 to 16 November.

The top 20 was chosen from 200 titles submitted by publishers across the UK, and was selected by a committee assembled by the Booksellers Association and The Academic Book of the Future project.

The top 20 academic books that changed the world are:

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
On the Origins of Species by Charles Darwin
Orientalism by Edward Said
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The Complete Works by William Shakespeare
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer
The Making of the English Working Class by E. P. Thompson
The Meaning of Relativity by Albert Einstein
The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
The Republic by Plato
The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Ways of Seeing by John Berger

Voting is now open to the public to choose the most influential academic book of all time.

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