The Greatest Books of All Time on Evolution

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 743 '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
293 The Time Machine H. G. Wells 1895 British English
726 Erewhon Samuel Butler 1872 British English
916 The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham 1951 British English
1002 2001 Arthur C. Clarke 1968 British English
1049 The Phenomenon Of Man Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1955 French French
1364 The Naked Ape Desmond Morris 1967 British English
2150 The Immense Journey Loren Eiseley 1957 American English
2343 The Inheritors William Golding 1955 British English
2472 Quatermass And The Pit Nigel Kneale 1959 British English
3854 The Soul of the White Ant Eugène N. Marais 1925 South African Afrikaans
4189 The Celestine Prophecy James Redfield 1993 American English
4302 Vril Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1871 British English
4802 Gaia James Lovelock 1979 British English
5180 The Professor Challenger Stories Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
5602 The Righteous Mind Jonathan Haidt 2012 American English
5653 The Evolution Man Or How I Ate My Father Roy Lewis 1960 British English
5949 The Time Ships Stephen Baxter 1995 British English
5995 Geological Evidences Of The Antiquity Of Man Charles Lyell 1863 British English
6238 Great Apes Will Self 1997 British English
6425 Blood Music Greg Bear 1985 American English
6924 The Insect Societies E. O. Wilson 1971 American English
7199 Back To Methuselah George Bernard Shaw 1921 Irish English
7665 The Long Journey Johannes V. Jensen 1908 Danish Danish
7669 Startide Rising David Brin 1983 American English
7795 The Song Of The Dodo David Quammen 1996 American English
8228 Bully For Brontosaurus Stephen Jay Gould 1991 American English
8751 Man Meets Dog Konrad Lorenz 1949 German German
9004 Climbing Mount Improbable Richard Dawkins 1996 British English
9071 Pluto's Republic Peter B. Medawar 1982 British English
9883 Trilobite! Richard Fortey 2000 British English
10617 Indica Pranay Lal 2016 Indian English
10973 Naturalist E. O. Wilson 1994 American English
11080 Camouflage Joe Haldeman 2004 American English
11080 2312 Kim Stanley Robinson 2012 American English
11801 Lilith's Brood Octavia E. Butler 1987 American English
12167 Earth Richard Fortey 2004 British English
12296 The Ant And The Peacock Helena Cronin 1991 British English
12296 Huxley Adrian Desmond 1997 British English
12296 Life Richard Fortey 1997 British English
12451 Seveneves Neal Stephenson 2015 American English
13694 Menschen Wie Götter Sergej Snegow 1966 Russian Russian
14074 They'd Rather Be Right Mark Clifton 1954 American English
14445 The Rational Optimist Matt Ridley 2010 British English
14596 Men Of The Old Stone Age Henry Fairfield Osborn 1915 American English
14599 The Vital Question Nick Lane 2015 British English
14851 The City And The Stars Arthur C. Clarke 1956 British English
14901 Wonderful Life Stephen Jay Gould 1989 American English
14901 Hothouse Brian Aldiss 1962 British English
15482 Hacking Darwin Jamie Metzl 2019 American English
15503 Accepting The Universe John Burroughs 1920 American English
15547 The Days Of A Man David Starr Jordan 1922 American English
15787 A Critique of the Theory of Evolution Thomas Hunt Morgan 1916 American English
15787 First Principles Herbert Spencer 1862 British English
15787 The Expression Of The Emotions In Man And Animals Charles Darwin 1872 British English
15787 The Theory Of The Gene Thomas Hunt Morgan 1926 American English
16567 Inherit The Wind Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee 1955 American English
17010 Hopeful Monsters Nicholas Mosley 1990 British English
17010 The Integral Trees Larry Niven 1984 American English
17010 Sundiver David Brin 1980 American English
17010 Dragon's Egg Robert L. Forward 1980 American English
17010 The Language Of The Genes Steve Jones 1993 British English
17010 The Dreaming Dragons Damien Broderick 1980 Australian English
17010 Otherlands Thomas Halliday 2022 British English
17010 Other Minds Peter Godfrey-Smith 2016 Australian English
17010 The Rise And Fall Of The Dinosaurs Steven Brusatte 2018 American English
17010 Dragonsdawn Anne McCaffrey 1988 American English
17010 Evolution Stephen Baxter 2003 British English
17010 Love Is The Plan The Plan Is Death James Tiptree Jr. 1973 American English
17010 Children Of Ruin Adrian Tchaikovsky 2019 British English
17010 Helliconia Winter Brian Aldiss 1985 British English
17010 Helliconia Spring Brian Aldiss 1982 British English
17010 The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750 1900 Michael J. Crowe 1986 American English
17010 The Fabric Of Reality David Deutsch 1997 British English
17010 Fire In The Mind George Johnson 1995 American English
17010 Defenders Of The Truth Ullica Segerstrale 1986 American English
17010 T. Rex And The Crater Of Doom Walter Alvarez 1997 American English
17010 Sex In The Sea Marah J. Hardt 2016 American English
17010 Life On The Edge Johnjoe McFadden, Jim Al-Khalili 2015 British English
17010 Cannibalism Bill Schutt 2017 American English
17010 Nature Via Nurture Matt Ridley 2003 British English
17010 Vacuum Diagrams Stephen Baxter 1997 British English
17010 Darwin Among The Machines George B. Dyson 1997 American English
17010 Bright Air, Brilliant Fire Gerald M. Edelman 1992 American English
17010 Darwin's Dreampond Tijs Goldschmidt 1994 Dutch Dutch
17010 Life Martha Holmes, Michael Gunton 2009 British English
17010 Human Nature After Darwin Janet Radcliffe Richards 2000 British English
17010 Our Posthuman Future Francis Fukuyama 2002 American English
17010 The Darwin Wars Andrew Brown 1999 British English
17010 Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2000 American English
17010 The Anthropic Cosmological Principle John D. Barrow, Frank J. Tipler 1986 British English
17010 Grand Canyon Jason Chin 2017 American English
17010 Breath James Nestor 2020 American English
17010 The Lost World Michael Crichton 1995 American English
17010 The Blind Watchmaker Richard Dawkins 1986 British English
17010 Aurora Kim Stanley Robinson 2015 American English