The Greatest Books of All Time on Modernity

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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
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
111 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot 1922 British English
185 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
198 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
478 Alcools Guillaume Apollinaire 1913 French French
584 Poet in New York Federico García Lorca 1940 Spanish Spanish
592 The Sleepwalkers Hermann Broch 1932 Austrian German
657 The Elementary Particles Michel Houellebecq 1998 French French
847 Only Yesterday Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1945 Israeli Hebrew
850 The Revolt of the Masses José Ortega y Gasset 1930 Spanish Spanish
873 Call to Arms Lu Xun 1922 Chinese Chinese
880 Orthodoxy G. K. Chesterton 1908 British English
1024 Some Prefer Nettles Junichiro Tanizaki 1929 Japanese Japanese
1025 Ambiguous Adventure Cheikh Hamidou Kane 1961 Senegalese French
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
1188 The Quest for Community Robert Nisbet 1953 American English
1195 Song Of Lawino Okot P'Bitek 1966 Ugandan Acholi
1238 The Age of Anxiety W. H. Auden 1947 British English
1278 So Long a Letter Mariama Bâ 1980 Senegalese French
1375 The Sea of Fertility Yukio Mishima 1965 Japanese Japanese
1447 Minima Moralia Theodor Adorno 1951 German German
1622 Fortress Besieged Qian Zhongshu 1947 Chinese Chinese
1745 Couples, Passersby Botho Strauß 1981 German German
2058 Sixty Stories Donald Barthelme 1981 American English
2080 Rationalism in Politics Michael Oakeshott 1962 British English
2176 Paris Spleen Charles Baudelaire 1869 French French
2246 Poems Of Gottfried Benn Gottfried Benn 1948 German German
2369 The Arcades Project Walter Benjamin 1982 German German
2422 Natural Right and History Leo Strauss 1953 American English
2495 Miramar Naguib Mahfouz 1967 Egyptian Arabic
2561 The Human Condition Hannah Arendt 1958 German English
2610 Whatever Michel Houellebecq 1994 French French
2789 A Cultural History Of The Modern Age Egon Friedell 1927 Austrian English
2798 The Theory Of Communicative Action Jürgen Habermas 1981 German German
3009 Labyrinths Christopher Okigbo 1971 Nigerian English
3419 Taipei People Pai Hsien-yung 1971 Chinese Chinese
3445 The Kandy Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby Tom Wolfe 1965 American English
3638 The Papalagi Erich Scheurmann 1920 German German
3806 Critique Of Cynical Reason Peter Sloterdijk 1983 German German
3832 Stories Of Three Decades Thomas Mann 1936 German German
4178 Shira S.Y. Agnon 1989 Israeli Hebrew
4416 Diary Witold Gombrowicz 1986 Polish Polish
4622 Calligrammes Guillaume Apollinaire 1918 French French
4670 The Painter Of Modern Life Charles Baudelaire 1863 French French
4879 The Wound Malick Fall 1967 Senegalese French
5484 The Painter Of Signs R. K. Narayan 1976 Indian English
5583 The Young Man Botho Strauß 1984 German German
5643 Enlightenment Now Steven Pinker 2018 American English
5691 Sur La Philosophie Africaine Paulin Hountondji 1976 French French
5804 Illuminations Walter Benjamin 1968 German German
6000 After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre 1981 British English
6005 Pylon William Faulkner 1935 American English
6102 Le Jeune Homme De Sable Williams Sassine 1979 French French
6335 A Preface to Morals Walter Lippmann 1929 American English
6969 The End Of Ideology Daniel Bell 1960 American English
7034 The Politics Of Cultural Despair Fritz Stern 1961 American English
7216 Selected Writings Jules Laforgue 1901 French French
7216 Selected Prose Hugo von Hofmannsthal 1900 Austrian German
7216 A Mind At Peace Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar 1949 Turkish Turkish
7216 Europe After The Rain Alan Burns 1965 British English
7606 L'interruption Dominique Noguez 1993 French French
7967 Complete Poems And Selected Letters And Prose Hart Crane 1952 American English
8027 Among The Believers V. S. Naipaul 1981 British English
8363 Integral Humanism Jacques Maritain 1936 French French
8473 No Longer At Ease Chinua Achebe 1960 Nigerian English
8473 Collected Poems Weldon Kees 1960 American English
8570 The Cultural Contradictions Of Capitalism Daniel Bell 1976 American English
8665 The Bridge Hart Crane 1930 American English
8681 In Defense Of Sanity G. K. Chesterton 2011 British English
8979 Riwan, Ou Le Chemin De Sable Ken Bugul 1999 French French
9192 Future Sex Emily Witt 2015 American English
9519 Nations And Nationalism Ernest Gellner 1983 British English
9776 The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams 1986 American English
9927 The Problem Of Atheism Augusto Del Noce 1964 Italian Italian
10076 Prufrock and Other Observations T. S. Eliot 1917 British English
10111 Carte Muette Philippe Vasset 2007 French French
10308 Shakespeare Our Contemporary Jan Kott 1961 Polish Polish
10308 Critique Of Everyday Life Henri Lefebvre 1947 French French
10402 The Triumph of the Therapeutic Philip Rieff 1966 American English
11051 The Complete Plays of T. S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1969 British English
11180 The Abandoned Baobab Ken Bugul 1982 Senegalese French
11365 La Vie Chinoise De Marianne Pêche Lisa Bresner French French
11533 Modernity On Endless Trial Leszek Kolakowski 1990 Polish English
11648 A Secular Age Charles Taylor 2007 Canadian English
11839 In Bluebeard's Castle George Steiner 1971 British English
11858 I Is Another Arthur Rimbaud French French
12515 Changes Ama Ata Aidoo 1991 Ghanaian English
13057 Sons And Daughters Chaim Grade 2025 American Yiddish
13318 Records Of Orchard City Shi Tuo 1946 Chinese Chinese
13600 Civilization Georges Duhamel 1918 French French
13749 The Enchantments Of Mammon Eugene McCarraher 2019 American English
13804 The Drunkard Liu Yichang 1963 Chinese Chinese
14009 Family Catastrophe Wang Wen-hsin 1973 Chinese Chinese
14025 The Wife's Tale Aida Edemariam 2018 Canadian English
14374 Smoke And Steel Carl Sandburg 1920 American English
14411 A Man Of The People Chinua Achebe 1966 Nigerian English
14646 Fin De Siècle Splendor Chu Tʽien-wen 1990 Chinese Chinese
14985 The Battle For God Karen Armstrong 2000 British English
14985 The Heart Of Redness Zakes Mda 2000 South African English
15662 Christianity And Progress Harry Emerson Fosdick 1922 American English
15779 Xala Ousmane Sembène 1973 Senegalese French
15834 The Cunning Of History Richard L. Rubenstein 1975 American English
15875 The Death Of The Past J. H. Plumb 1969 British English
15915 Science and the Modern World Alfred North Whitehead 1925 British English
15915 Private Life Of An Indian Prince Mulk Raj Anand 1953 Indian English
16599 The Pill Vs. The Springhill Mine Disaster Richard Brautigan 1968 American English
16641 100 Selected Poems E. E. Cummings 1954 American English
17161 Essays in Sociology Max Weber 1946 German German
17161 Interpreters Wole Soyinka 1965 Nigerian English
17161 A Short History Of Modern Philosophy Roger Scruton 1982 British English
16885 The Crisis Of The Modern World (Guenon, Rene. Works.) René Guénon 1927 French French
16849 Revolt Against The Modern World Julius Evola 1934 Italian Italian
17161 Les 1001 années de la nostalgie Rachid Boudjedra 1997 Algerian French
17161 Symbols Of Modernity Abdul Amir Khadir Unknown Unknown
17161 The Picador Book Of Modern Indian Literature Amit Chaudhuri 2001 Indian English
17161 From The Ruins Of Empire Pankaj Mishra 2012 Indian English
17161 The Comfort Crisis Michael Easter 2021 American English
17161 The Heartbeat Of Wounded Knee David Treuer 2019 American English
17161 Sources Of The Self Charles Taylor 1989 Canadian English
17161 Why Liberalism Failed Patrick J. Deneen 2018 American English