100 Best Non-Fiction Books (in Translation) of the 20th Century … and Beyond

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Counterpunch, 146 Books

Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn lists the 100 best non-fiction books (in translation) of the 20th century. This list has way more books than 100. These guys can't count.

This list was originally published in 2014 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
12576 My Half Century Anna Akhmatova 1997 Russian Russian
10400 For Marx Louis Althusser 1965 French French
2500 The South Pole Roald Amundsen 1912 Norwegian Norwegian
3309 The Theater and Its Double Antonin Artaud 1938 French French
1447 Minima Moralia Theodor Adorno 1951 German German
9889 The Hour Of Our Death Philippe Ariès 1981 French French
10308 Mimesis Erich Auerbach 1946 German German
6616 The Poetics Of Space Gaston Bachelard 1958 French French
659 Mythologies Roland Barthes 1957 French French
8776 Eroticism Georges Bataille 1957 French French
11411 The Egyptian, Syrian, And Iraqi Revolutions Hanna Batatu 1984 American Unknown
10849 Orson Welles André Bazin 1972 French French
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
5804 Illuminations Walter Benjamin 1968 German German
1985 Black Elk Speaks John G. Neihardt 1932 American English
10308 Feudal Society Marc Bloch 1940 French French
10308 Chinook Texts Franz Boas 1894 American English
6840 Other Inquisitions Jorge Luis Borges 1952 Argentinian Spanish
12724 Acts Of Resistance Pierre Bourdieu 1998 French French
1624 The Mediterranean And The Mediterranean World In The Age Of Philip Ii Fernand Braudel 1949 French French
10308 Brecht On Theatre Bertolt Brecht 1964 German German
1508 Surrealist Manifesto André Breton 1924 French French
11306 My Last Sigh Luis Buñuel 1982 Spanish Spanish
10849 Homo Necans Walter Burkert 1972 German German
10308 Man, Play And Games Roger Caillois 1958 French French
408 The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus 1942 French French
11630 Political And Social Writings Cornelius Castoriadis 1988 French French
10308 Theory Of Peasant Economy Alexander V. Chayanov 1925 Russian Russian
1976 Towards A New Architecture Le Corbusier 1923 French French
10308 Traditional French Cooking Curnonsky 1961 French French
2502 Rebellion In The Backlands Euclides da Cunha 1902 Brazilian Portuguese
10308 The Secret Life Of Salvador Dali Salvador Dali 1942 Spanish Spanish
8972 The Society Of The Spectacle Guy Debord 1967 French French
10530 Of Grammatology Jacques Derrida 1967 French French
10849 Gardens Of Adonis Marcel Detienne 1972 Greek French
11198 Stranglehold On Africa René Dumont 1980 French French
10308 Film Form Sergei Eisenstein 1949 Russian Russian
10308 The Sacred And The Profane Mircea Eliade 1957 Romanian French
1581 The Civilizing Process Norbert Elias 1939 German German
2273 The Wretched of the Earth Frantz Fanon 1961 Algerian French
10889 Architecture For The Poor Hassan Fathy 1973 Egyptian English
4580 History Of Art Elie Faure 1919 French French
11035 Cinema And History Marc Ferro 1977 French French
1959 Discipline and Punish Michel Foucault 1975 French French
10999 The History Of Sexuality Michel Foucault 1976 French French
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
8052 Pedagogy Of The Oppressed Paulo Freire 1970 Brazilian Portuguese
4642 The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life Sigmund Freud 1901 German German
2265 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality Sigmund Freud 1905 Austrian German
10308 The Dancing Bees Karl von Frisch 1953 German German
12302 Reflections Of Eden Birute Galdikas 1995 Canadian English
2076 The Memory of Fire Trilogy Eduardo Galeano 1982 Uruguayan Spanish
1573 The Story Of My Experiments With Truth Mahatma Gandhi 1927 Indian Gujarati
10217 Prisoner Of Love Jean Genet 1986 French French
10999 How We Won The War Võ Nguyên Giáp 1976 Vietnamese Vietnamese
10308 Travels In The Congo André Gide 1927 French French
10308 Mechanization Takes Command Sigfried Giedion 1948 Mixed English
10400 The Bog People P. V. Glob 1965 Danish Danish
11924 Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology Andre Gorz 1991 French French
11336 How New York Stole The Idea Of Modern Art Serge Guilbaut 1983 American English
4113 Art and Illusion Ernest H. Gombrich 1960 British English
2962 Prison Notebooks Antonio Gramsci 1948 Italian Italian
10308 Episodes Of The Cuban Revolutionary War Che Guevara 1963 Argentinian Spanish
9184 A Theology Of Liberation Gustavo Gutierrez 1971 Peruvian Spanish
1098 Seven Years in Tibet Heinrich Harrer 1952 Austrian German
10308 The Social History Of Art Arnold Hauser 1951 German German
517 Being and Time Martin Heidegger 1927 German German
10308 What Is Called Thinking? Martin Heidegger 1954 German German
7765 Annapurna Maurice Herzog 1951 French French
14001 Conquest Of The Useless Werner Herzog 2009 German German
1075 The Kon-Tiki Expedition Thor Heyerdahl 1948 Norwegian Norwegian
1147 Dialectic Of Enlightenment Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer 1944 German German
537 The Waning of the Middle Ages Johan Huizinga 1919 Dutch Dutch
11035 This Sex Which Is Not One Luce Irigary 1977 French French
11411 The Gardens Of Japan Teiji Itoh 1984 Japanese English
10308 The Gnostic Religion Hans Jonas 1958 German English
1102 I Ching China -1000 Chinese Chinese
1058 Memories, Dreams, Reflections Carl Jung 1963 Swiss German
1968 Kama Sutra Vātsyāyana -400 Indian Sanskrit
12447 A Legendary Tradition Of Kamapua’a Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa 1996 American English
10308 Shakespeare Our Contemporary Jan Kott 1961 Polish Polish
2500 Psychopathia Sexualis Richard von Krafft-Ebing 1886 German German
10308 The Conquest Of Bread Petr Kropotkin 1892 Russian French
3067 Montaillou Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie 1975 French French
8778 State And Revolution Vladimir Il’ich Lenin 1917 Russian Russian
10308 The Coming Of The French Revolution Georges Lefebvre 1939 French French
10308 Critique Of Everyday Life Henri Lefebvre 1947 French French
10308 The Broken Spears Miguel Leon-Portilla 1959 Mexican Spanish
486 Tristes Tropiques Claude Lévi-Strauss 1955 French French
559 Christ Stopped at Eboli Carlo Levi 1945 Italian Italian
958 The Periodic Table Primo Levi 1975 Italian Italian
10308 Russia El Lissitsky 1930 Russian Russian
10308 Ornament And Crime Adolf Loos 1908 German German
8768 Man Meets Dog Konrad Lorenz 1949 German German
1452 History And Class Consciousness Georg Lukacs 1923 German German
10530 Lumumba Speaks Patrice Lumumba 1967 Congolese French
10308 Reform Or Revolution? Rosa Luxemburg 1900 German German
12576 The Diaries Alma Mahler 1997 Austrian German
10813 The Works Of The People Of Old Samuel Manaiakalani Kamakau 1971 Unknown Hawaiian
8777 On Guerilla Warfare Mao 1937 Chinese Chinese
12302 Shadows Of Tender Fury Subcomandante Marcos 1995 Mexican Spanish
10308 Eros And Civilization Herbert Marcuse 1955 German English
10308 The Gift Marcel Mauss 1925 French French
3089 I, Rigoberta Menchú Rigoberta Menchú Tum 1983 Guatemalan Spanish
10308 Sense And Non Sense Maurice Merleau-Ponty 1948 French French
10308 A History Of Russian Literature Dmitry Svyatopolk Mirsky 1926 Russian English
11812 Ecology, Community And Lifestyle Arne Naess 1989 Norwegian Norwegian
3531 Behemoth Franz Neumann 1942 German English
8832 Hiroshima Notes Kenzaburō Ōe 1965 Japanese Japanese
10308 Perspective As Symbolic Form Erwin Panofsky 1927 German German
7790 The Mind and Society Vilfredo Pareto 1916 Italian Italian
11035 My Life And The Beautiful Game Pele 1977 Brazilian English
10308 Morphology Of The Folktale Vladimir Aioakovlevich Propp 1928 Russian Russian
10308 Character Analysis Wilhelm Reich 1945 German German
10308 Renoir, My Father Jean Renoir 1962 French French
4116 For a New Novel Alain Robbe-Grillet 1963 French French
11336 Memoirs From The Women’s Prison Nawal El Saadawi 1983 Egyptian Arabic
8768 War Diaries Jean Paul Sartre 1940 French French
403 The Words Jean Paul Sartre 1963 French French
10308 The Course In General Linguistics Ferdinand de Saussure 1916 Swiss French