The Greatest Books of All Time on Conflict

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
272 The Devil to Pay in the Backlands Joao Guimaraes Rosa 1956 Brazilian Portuguese
297 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
309 Tarzan of the Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912 American English
337 Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare 1597 British English
372 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 British English
379 The Second World War Winston Churchill 1948 British English
385 Quo Vadis Henryk Sienkiewicz 1895 Polish Polish
390 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1908 British English
430 The Bridge on the Drina Ivo Andrić 1945 Bosnian Serbo-croatian
450 Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler 1903 British English
471 Waiting for the Barbarians J. M. Coetzee 1980 South African English
472 The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead 1940 Australian English
483 The Civil War Shelby Foote 1958 American English
507 The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper 1826 American English
535 Red Cavalry Isaac Babel 1926 Russian Russian
541 The Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence 1926 British English
552 The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane 1895 American English
571 And Quiet Flows The Don Mikhail Sholokhov 1928 Russian Russian
580 Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Rebecca West 1941 British English
588 The Pillars Of The Earth Ken Follett 1989 British English
596 The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides -410 Greek Ancient greek
609 The Opposing Shore Julien Gracq 1951 French French
614 Facundo Domingo Faustino Sarmiento 1845 Argentinian Spanish
624 The Histories of Herodotus Herodotus -450 Greek Ancient greek
637 The Quiet American Graham Greene 1955 British English
663 The Siege of Krishnapur J. G. Farrell 1973 British English
665 The Family Moskat Isaac Bashevis Singer 1950 Polish Yiddish
673 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne 1870 French French
677 Lud-in-the-Mist Hope Mirrlees 1926 British English
699 The Nibelungenlied Unknown 1200 German Middle high german
713 The Killer Angels Michael Shaara 1974 American English
732 A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul 1979 Trinidadian English
733 Arrow of God Chinua Achebe 1964 Nigerian English
739 The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy 1878 British English
753 Henderson The Rain King Saul Bellow 1959 American English
765 The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough 1977 Australian English
768 A Glastonbury Romance John Cowper Powys 1932 British English
783 Anabasis Xenophon -390 Greek Ancient greek
819 Burmese Days George Orwell 1934 British English
826 Voss Patrick White 1957 Australian English
828 Lost Horizon James Hilton 1933 British English
839 Winnetou Karl May 1893 German German
842 Outlander Diana Gabaldon 1991 American English
847 Only Yesterday Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1945 Israeli Hebrew
876 Lysistrata Aristophanes -411 Greek Ancient greek
886 Riders of the Purple Sage Zane Grey 1912 American English
899 Stoner John Williams 1965 American English
917 The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham 1951 British English
925 Deliverance James Dickey 1970 American English
951 A Princess Of Mars Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912 American English
957 The Little World Of Don Camillo Giovanni Guareschi 1948 Italian Italian
1013 Green Mansions W. H. Hudson 1904 British English
1025 Ambiguous Adventure Cheikh Hamidou Kane 1961 Senegalese French
1041 On War Carl Von Clausewitz 1832 German German
1057 The Master of Ballantrae Robert Louis Stevenson 1889 British English
1059 The True History of the Conquest of New Spain Bernal Díaz del Castillo 1632 Spanish Spanish
1081 The War of the End of the World Mario Vargas Llosa 1981 Peruvian Spanish
1084 Mother Courage and Her Children Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
1108 Chaka Thomas Mofolo 1925 South African Sesotho
1128 The Price Of Salt Patricia Highsmith 1952 American English
1131 Ashes and Diamonds Jerzy Andrzejewski 1948 Polish Polish
1178 Nathan the Wise Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1779 German German
1195 Song Of Lawino Okot P'Bitek 1966 Ugandan Acholi
1196 Conjure Wife Fritz Leiber 1943 American English
1198 Lorna Doone R. D. Blackmore 1869 British English
1233 Children of Gebelawi Naguib Mahfouz 1959 Egyptian Arabic
1267 Billy Budd Herman Melville 1924 American English
1269 The Unknown Soldier Väinö Linna 1954 Finnish Finnish
1298 The Days of His Grace Eyvind Johnson 1960 Swedish Swedish
1306 Long Day's Journey Into Night Eugene O'Neill 1956 American English
1337 A Legacy Sybille Bedford 1956 German English
1350 Seven Against Thebes Aeschylus -467 Greek Ancient greek
1351 The Suppliants Aeschylus -463 Greek Ancient greek
1383 The Birds Aristophanes -414 Greek Ancient greek
1386 Six Characters in Search of an Author Luigi Pirandello 1921 Italian Italian
1408 Amongst Women John McGahern 1990 Irish English
1409 No Exit Jean Paul Sartre 1944 French French
1424 Our Ancestors Italo Calvino 1952 Italian Italian
1440 The Virginian Owen Wister 1902 American English
1448 Suite Française Irène Némirovsky 2004 French French
1455 Antigone Jean Anouilh 1944 French French
1461 Oranges are not the only Fruit Jeanette Winterson 1985 British English
1504 Sometimes a Great Notion Ken Kesey 1964 American English
1516 The People of Hemsö August Strindberg 1887 Swedish Swedish
1520 The Slaves of Solitude Patrick Hamilton 1947 British English
1521 The Robbers Friedrich Schiller 1781 German German
1537 The Owl Service Alan Garner 1967 British English
1569 Empire of the Sun J. G. Ballard 1984 British English
1570 The Young Lions Irwin Shaw 1948 American English
1579 The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel Isaac Babel 1934 Russian Russian
1580 The Struggle for Europe Chester Wilmot 1952 British English
1588 The Guns of August Barbara Wertheim Tuchman 1962 American English
1595 The Forbidden Kingdom Jan Jacob Slauerhoff 1932 Dutch Dutch
1598 Ronia, The Robber's Daughter Astrid Lindgren 1981 Swedish Swedish
1611 The Song of Hiawatha Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1855 American English
1616 Under the Yoke Ivan Vazov 1888 Bulgarian Bulgarian
1624 The Mediterranean And The Mediterranean World In The Age Of Philip Ii Fernand Braudel 1949 French French
1658 The Song of Roland Unknown 1100 French Old french
1661 A Midsummer Night's Dream William Shakespeare 1595 British English
1664 Eclipse of the Crescent Moon Géza Gárdonyi 1899 Hungarian Hungarian
1668 Solitude Caterina Albert 1905 Spanish Catalan
1671 The Ordeal Of Richard Feverel George Meredith 1859 British English
1682 Asterix the Gaul Rene Goscinny 1959 French French
1683 The Life Written By Himself the Archpriest Avvakum 1666 Russian Russian
1705 The Sea-Wolf Jack London 1904 American English
1711 The Peasants Władysław Reymont 1904 Polish Polish
1724 Logbook George Seferis 1940 Greek Greek
1744 Haroun and the Sea of Stories Salman Rushdie 1990 British English
1779 Rob Roy Sir Walter Scott 1817 British English
1788 Heartbreak House George Bernard Shaw 1919 British English
1814 Christ Recrucified Nikos Kazantzakis 1948 Greek Greek
1830 Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant Anne Tyler 1982 American English
1837 Jaws Peter Benchley 1974 American English
1848 Darker Than You Think Jack Williamson 1948 American English