The Greatest Books of All Time on Modernization

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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
857 Midaq Alley Naguib Mahfouz 1947 Egyptian Arabic
1029 Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon Jorge Amado 1958 Brazilian Portuguese
1359 The Makioka Sisters Junichiro Tanizaki 1948 Japanese Japanese
1487 Kokoro Natsume Sōseki 1914 Japanese Japanese
2135 Farewell To Matyora Valentin Rasputin 1976 Russian Russian
2454 Black Mischief Evelyn Waugh 1932 British English
3823 The Search For Modern China Jonathan Spence 1990 American English
4189 Age of Ambition Evan Osnos 2014 American English
4261 Petals of blood Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 1977 Kenyan English
5026 The City And The Mountains Eça de Queirós 1901 Portuguese Portuguese
5986 Shanghai Baby Wei Hui 1999 Chinese Chinese
6341 China Pop Jianying Zha 1995 Unknown English
6674 India After Gandhi Ramachandra Guha 2007 Indian English
7217 A Mind At Peace Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar 1949 Turkish Turkish
7217 Lead Us Into Temptation Breandán Ó hEithir 1976 Irish English
8288 The Last Days Of Old Beijing Michael Meyer 2008 Unknown English
8352 China Road Rob Gifford 2007 British English
8903 Vendor Of Sweets R. K. Narayan 1967 Indian English
9252 Cities Of Salt Abd al-Rahman Munif 1984 Arabic Arabic
9914 The Capitalist Revolution Peter Berger 1986 American English
10455 We Don’t Know Ourselves Fintan O'Toole 2021 Irish English
10790 Peter the Great Robert K. Massie 1980 American English
11663 Dawn To The West Donald Keene 1984 American English
12835 Daughter Of Persia Sattareh Farman-Farmaian 1992 Iranian English
13132 Peruvali Sukumaran Unknown Unknown
13363 The Time Regulation Institute Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar 1954 Turkish Turkish
13601 En France Marius-Ary Leblond 1909 French French
13918 Son's Big Doll Huang Chun-ming 1968 Chinese Chinese
14025 Miss New India Bharati Mukherjee 2011 American English
14551 Turbulence Jia Pingwa 1987 Chinese Chinese
14554 Deng Xiaoping And The Transformation Of China Ezra F. Vogel 2011 American English
14585 Lai Suo Huang Fan 1987 Chinese Chinese
14630 China Along The Yellow River Cao Jinqing 2000 Chinese Chinese
14852 City Of The Queen Shin Shu-ching 1994 Chinese Chinese
15773 Other Gods Pearl S. Buck 1940 American English
15872 The Setting Sun Osamu Dazai 1947 Japanese Japanese
16751 Sanshirō Natsume Sōseki 1908 Japanese Japanese
17173 Destiny Disrupted Tamim Ansary 2009 American English
17173 Sacred And Secular Ronald Inglehart, Pippa Norris 2004 American English
17173 Voices Of The Old Sea Norman Lewis 1984 British English
17173 Frog Yan Mo 2009 Chinese Chinese
17173 Leave Me Alone Murong Xuecun 2002 Chinese Chinese
17173 Lotus Lijia Zhang 2017 Chinese English
17173 Islam And The West Bernard Lewis 1993 British English
16874 The Silent Cry Kenzaburō Ōe 1967 Japanese Japanese
17173 Silk And Steel Stephen Alter 1980 Unknown English
17173 Sparks Ian Johnson 2023 Unknown English
17173 Video Night In Kathmandu And Other Reports From The Not So Far East Pico Iyer 1988 British English
16964 Oblomow Ivan Goncharov 1859 Russian Russian
17173 L'écroulement De La Baliverna Dino Buzzati Italian Italian