The Greatest Books of All Time on Economy

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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
108 Walden Henry David Thoreau 1854 American English
830 The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Edward Gibbon 1776 British English
870 Economy and Society Max Weber 1922 German German
881 Utopia Thomas More 1516 British Latin
1590 Germania Cornelius Tacitus 98 Roman Latin
1624 The Mediterranean And The Mediterranean World In The Age Of Philip Ii Fernand Braudel 1949 French French
2296 The Limits To Growth Donella H. Meadows 1972 American English
2809 Roadside Picnic Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky 1972 Russian Russian
2836 Facing Mount Kenya Jomo Kenyatta 1938 Kenyan English
2880 The Diary of Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys 1825 British English
3249 A Distant Mirror Barbara Wertheim Tuchman 1978 American English
3823 The Search For Modern China Jonathan Spence 1990 American English
4167 Letters On England Voltaire 1734 French French
4496 The Unsettling of America Wendell Berry 1977 American English
4576 No Ordinary Time Doris Kearns Goodwin 1994 American English
5474 Working Studs Terkel 1974 American English
5614 The Mushroom At The End Of The World Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing 2015 American English
5917 Reveille in Washington Margaret Leech 1941 American English
6514 The Control Revolution James R. Beniger 1986 American English
6585 Kvartetten Som Sprängdes Birger Sjöberg 1924 Swedish Swedish
6673 India After Gandhi Ramachandra Guha 2007 Indian English
6734 The Poverty of Power Barry Commoner 1976 American English
6767 Poor Richard Improved, The Way To Wealth Benjamin Franklin 1758 American English
6767 Idaho Federal Writers' Project 1937 American English
6918 English Society In The Eighteenth Century Roy Porter 1982 British English
7723 The Peasants Of Languedoc Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie 1966 French French
8350 China Road Rob Gifford 2007 British English
8465 Griftopia Matt Taibbi 2010 American English
8861 Mexico Enrique Krauze 1997 Mexican Spanish
8926 Hidden America Jeanne Marie Laskas 2012 American English
9335 Showa 1926-1939 Shigeru Mizuki 2009 Japanese Japanese
9525 In Line Behind A Billion People Damien Ma, William Adams 2013 Unknown English
10305 Feudal Society Marc Bloch 1940 French French
10305 Theory Of Peasant Economy Alexander V. Chayanov 1925 Russian Russian
10305 The Gift Marcel Mauss 1925 French French
10434 Gomorrah Roberto Saviano 2006 Italian Italian
10450 We Don’t Know Ourselves Fintan O'Toole 2021 Irish English
10450 A Hologram For The King Dave Eggers 2012 American English
11661 After The Music Stopped Alan S. Blinder 2013 American English
11661 The Embarrassment Of Riches Simon Schama 1987 British English
11850 Havana Real Yoani Sánchez 2011 Cuban Spanish
11939 Grover Cleveland Allan Nevins 1932 American English
12081 Shop Class As Soulcraft Matthew B. Crawford 2009 American English
12400 Hot, Flat, And Crowded Thomas L. Friedman 2008 American English
12608 Early Fort Myers Alberta C. Barnes Unknown Unknown
13217 Selections From The Speeches And Writings Of Edmund Burke Edmund Burke 1892 British English
13335 Change We Can Believe In Barack Obama 2008 American English
13360 A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain Daniel Defoe 1724 British English
13360 The History Of England Thomas Babington Macaulay 1848 British English
13360 History Of Greece George Grote 1846 British English
14025 2030 Albert Brooks 2011 American English
14334 India Under British Rule From The Foundation Of The East India Company James Talboys Wheeler 1874 British English
14389 The World Is Flat Thomas L. Friedman 2005 American English
14457 Global Catastrophes And Trends Vaclav Smil 2008 Czech English
14498 In Fed We Trust David Wessel 2009 American English
14552 The Ancient Ship Zhang Wei 1987 Chinese Chinese
14553 That Used To Be Us Thomas L. Friedman, Michael Mandelbaum 2011 American English
14730 Energy And Civilization Vaclav Smil 2017 Czech English
14984 Behold the Dreamers Imbolo Mbue 2016 Cameroonian English
14984 The Anglo Saxons Marc Morris 2021 British English
15638 How The World Really Works Vaclav Smil 2022 Canadian English
15795 Verbum Sapienti William Petty 1665 British Latin
15863 Political Discourses David Hume 1752 British English
15902 The Masters and the Slaves Gilberto Freyre 1933 Brazilian Portuguese
15902 Daily Life In Ancient Rome Jérôme Carcopino 1936 French French
15902 Medieval Cities Henri Pirenne 1925 Belgian French
16575 On The Principles Of Political Economy And Taxation David Ricardo 1817 British English
17126 The Radicalism of the American Revolution Gordon S. Wood 1992 American English
17126 The Colonial Period of American History Charles McLean Andrews 1934 American English
17126 Washington, Village and Capital, 1800-1878 Constance McLaughlin Green 1962 American English
17126 Puritan Village Sumner Chilton Powell 1963 American English
17126 Parliament of Whores P. J. O'Rourke 1991 American English
17126 Distraction Bruce Sterling 1998 American English
17126 Cuba Ada Ferrer 2021 American English
17126 Voices Of The Old Sea Norman Lewis 1984 British English
17126 Nature’s Metropolis William Cronon 1991 American English
17126 Travels In Siberia Ian Frazier 2010 American English
16967 Black Majority Peter H. Wood 1974 American English
17126 The Civil War Geoffrey C. Ward 1990 American English
17126 The State We're In Will Hutton 1995 British English
17126 Ours Was The Shining Future David Leonhardt 2023 Unknown English
17126 Serotonin Michel Houellebecq 2019 French French
17126 A History Of South Africa Frank Welsh 1998 Unknown English
17126 Cape Town E. Van Heyningen, Nigel Worden, Vivian Bickford-Smith 1998 Unknown English
17126 The Storm Before The Storm Mike Duncan 2017 American English
17126 Congo David Van Reybrouck 2010 Belgian Dutch
17126 The History Of The Medieval World Susan Wise Bauer 2010 American English
17126 Ming Robert B. Oxnam 1995 Unknown English
17126 India’s Techade Nalin Mehta 2023 Unknown English
17126 The Scythian Empire Christopher I. Beckwith 2023 Unknown English
17126 The Age Of The Cathedrals Georges Duby 1966 French French
17126 The History Of Italy Francesco Guicciardini 1540 Italian Italian