The Greatest Books of All Time on History

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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
1030 Meditations on First Philosophy Rene Descartes 1641 French Latin
1037 The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston 1976 American English
1038 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
1048 The Hunt for Red October Tom Clancy 1984 American English
1049 Works and Days Hesiod -700 Greek Ancient greek
1052 Treatise on Radioactivity Marie Curie 1910 French French
1054 Letters from a Stoic Seneca 64 Roman Latin
1058 Memories, Dreams, Reflections Carl Jung 1963 Swiss German
1059 The True History of the Conquest of New Spain Bernal Díaz del Castillo 1632 Spanish Spanish
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
1075 The Kon-Tiki Expedition Thor Heyerdahl 1948 Norwegian Norwegian
1076 Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres Henry Adams 1904 American English
1082 The Abolition of Man C. S. Lewis 1943 British English
1083 Upanishads Unknown -799 Indian Sanskrit
1089 Suttree Cormac McCarthy 1979 American English
1091 Shahnameh Ferdowsi 1010 Iranian Persian
1095 The Swimming-Pool Library Alan Hollinghurst 1988 British English
1098 Seven Years in Tibet Heinrich Harrer 1952 Austrian German
1100 Collected Poems Of Edward Thomas Edward Thomas 1920 British English
1102 I Ching China -1000 Chinese Chinese
1104 Maus Art Spiegelman 1980 American English
1109 Othello William Shakespeare 1603 British English
1114 Andersonville MacKinlay Kantor 1955 American English
1119 The Street Ann Petry 1946 American English
1121 Fantasia Assia Djebar 1985 French French
1122 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 1988 British English
1124 Ajax Sophocles -440 Greek Ancient greek
1138 The Unwomanly Face Of War Svetlana Alexievich 1985 Russian Russian
1141 The Golden Bough James George Frazer 1890 British English
1150 Witness Whittaker Chambers 1952 American English
1151 The Water Margin Shi Naian 1370 Chinese Chinese
1156 Apology Plato -389 Greek Ancient greek
1159 Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt 1963 German English
1162 Essays Francis Bacon 1597 British English
1163 The Road to Oxiana Robert Byron 1937 British English
1170 Capitalism and Freedom Milton Friedman 1962 American English
1175 The Demons Heimito von Doderer 1956 Austrian German
1180 Annals Cornelius Tacitus 109 Roman Latin
1188 The Quest for Community Robert Nisbet 1953 American English
1190 The Spirit Of The Laws Montesquieu 1748 French French
1192 The Politics Aristotle -350 Greek Ancient greek
1206 Pachinko Min Jin Lee 2017 American English
1209 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015 American English
1212 A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis Sigmund Freud 1920 Austrian German
1218 The Egyptian Mika Waltari 1945 Finnish Finnish
1222 Studs Lonigan James T. Farrell 1932 American English
1224 The Snow Leopard Peter Matthiessen 1978 American English
1226 What Is To Be Done? Vladimir Il’ich Lenin 1902 Russian Russian
1234 Woman at Point Zero Nawal El Saadawi 1975 Egyptian Arabic
1242 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis José Saramago 1984 Portuguese Portuguese
1244 The Travels of Marco Polo Marco Polo 1300 Italian Old french
1246 Danube Claudio Magris 1986 Italian Italian
1248 The Conservative Mind Russell Kirk 1953 American English
1252 Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari 2011 Israeli Hebrew
1253 Absolute Beginners Colin MacInnes 1959 British English
1257 Lives of the Caesars Suetonius 121 Roman Latin
1258 The General of the Dead Army Ismail Kadare 1963 Albanian Albanian
1266 The Heptameron Marguerite de Navarre 1558 French French
1269 The Unknown Soldier Väinö Linna 1954 Finnish Finnish
1270 Omeros Derek Walcott 1990 Saint Lucian English
1276 The Feynman Lectures on Physics Richard P. Feynman 1963 American English
1283 Cybernetics Norbert Wiener 1948 American English
1293 Salem's Lot Stephen King 1975 American English
1294 Peyton Place Grace Metalious 1956 American English
1295 Phenomenology of Mind G. W. F. Hegel 1807 German German
1298 The Days of His Grace Eyvind Johnson 1960 Swedish Swedish
1302 Poems Paul Celan 1952 German German
1303 The Seventh Cross Anna Seghers 1942 German German
1315 Voices from Chernobyl Svetlana Alexievich 1997 Belarusian Russian
1320 God and Man at Yale William F. Buckley, Jr 1951 American English
1323 A Canticle for Leibowitz Walter M. Miller 1960 American English
1326 The Compleat Angler Izaak Walton 1653 British English
1327 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding John Locke 1689 British English
1337 A Legacy Sybille Bedford 1956 German English
1338 Something Wicked This Way Comes Ray Bradbury 1962 American English
1340 As You Like it William Shakespeare 1600 British English
1342 The Principles of Psychology William James 1890 American English
1344 The Emigrants W. G. Sebald 1992 German German
1351 The Suppliants Aeschylus -463 Greek Ancient greek
1364 Fragments Heraclitus -500 Greek Ancient greek
1376 Tales of the South Pacific James A. Michener 1947 American English
1378 The Towers Of Trebizond Rose Macauley 1956 British English
1384 Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond 1997 American English
1387 Gödel, Escher, Bach Douglas Hofstadter 1979 American English
1392 Evicted Matthew Desmond 2016 American English
1394 Soldiers of Salamis Javier Cercas 2001 Spanish Spanish
1400 The Great Railway Bazaar Paul Theroux 1975 American English
1406 The Life of Charlotte Brontë Elizabeth Gaskell 1857 British English
1410 Poem of the Cid Unknown 1207 Spanish Old spanish
1412 The Constitution of Liberty Friedrich von Hayek 1960 Austrian English
1415 Life on the Mississippi Mark Twain 1883 American English
1416 Rights of Man Thomas Paine 1791 British English
1419 The Viceroys Federico De Roberto 1894 Italian Italian
1422 The Sot-Weed Factor John Barth 1960 American English
1434 R. E. Lee Douglas Southall Freeman 1934 American English
1443 Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon 1997 American English
1446 The Tongue Set Free Elias Canetti 1977 Austrian German
1448 Suite Française Irène Némirovsky 2004 French French
1449 Corpus Aristotelicum Aristotle -322 Greek Greek
1452 History And Class Consciousness Georg Lukacs 1923 German German
1454 Pushkin House Andrey Bitov 1978 Russian Russian
1459 The City of God Augustine 413 Roman Latin
1462 An American Dilemma Gunnar Myrdal 1944 Swedish English
1468 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner William Faulkner 1950 American English
1470 Wind, Sand and Stars Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1939 French French
1474 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
1475 Lettres de madame de Sévigné Marie de Rabutin-Chantal marquise de Sévigné 1671 French French
1477 An Essay on the Principle of Population Thomas Robert Malthus 1798 British English
1489 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
1495 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
1504 Sometimes a Great Notion Ken Kesey 1964 American English
1508 The Tower William Butler Yeats 1928 Irish English
1515 The World as Will and Idea Arthur Schopenhauer 1818 German German
1516 The Bells of Basel Louis Aragon 1934 French French
1526 A History of Western Philosophy Bertrand Russell 1945 British English
1528 The Consolation of Philosophy Boethius 524 Roman Latin
1529 Orientalism Edward W. Said 1978 Palestinian English
1540 Decline of the West Oswald Spengler 1918 German German
1541 The Confessions of Nat Turner William Styron 1967 American English
1542 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English