The Greatest Books of All Time on Politics

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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
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
63 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
91 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
116 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
149 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 American English
152 The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli 1532 Italian Italian
169 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
172 Man's Fate Andre Malraux 1933 French French
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
283 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
325 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
344 The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan 1915 British English
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
361 Foundation Isaac Asimov 1951 American English
363 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
377 The Education of Henry Adams Henry Adams 1907 American English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
415 The Day of the Jackal Frederick Forsyth 1971 British English
431 Memoirs From Beyond the Grave François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1849 French French
435 Scoop Evelyn Waugh 1938 British English
453 I, Claudius Robert Graves 1934 British English
455 V Thomas Pynchon 1963 American English
470 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad 1907 British English
473 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
492 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressell, Peter Miles 1914 British English
526 Family Sayings Natalia Ginzburg 1963 Italian Italian
530 The Red Room August Strindberg 1879 Swedish Swedish
541 The Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence 1926 British English
568 The Mandarins Simone de Beauvoir 1954 French French
577 Anniversaries Uwe Johnson 1970 German German
580 Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Rebecca West 1941 British English
592 The Sleepwalkers Hermann Broch 1932 Austrian German
597 The Years Annie Ernaux 2008 French French
609 The Opposing Shore Julien Gracq 1951 French French
614 Facundo Domingo Faustino Sarmiento 1845 Argentinian Spanish
668 Rabbit Redux John Updike 1971 American English
677 Lud-in-the-Mist Hope Mirrlees 1926 British English
678 Barchester Towers Anthony Trollope 1857 British English
701 The Feast of the Goat Mario Vargas Llosa 2000 Peruvian Spanish
716 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 1925 German German
723 The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst 2004 British English
730 Petersburg Andrei Bely 1913 Russian Russian
735 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth 1993 Indian English
761 Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood 1939 British English
768 A Glastonbury Romance John Cowper Powys 1932 British English
772 The Group Mary McCarthy 1963 American English
785 The Stechlin Theodor Fontane 1898 German German
799 Kaputt Curzio Malaparte 1944 Italian Italian
831 Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers 1903 British English
856 Conversation in the Cathedral Mario Vargas Llosa 1969 Peruvian Spanish
876 Lysistrata Aristophanes -411 Greek Ancient greek
885 A Tale of Love and Darkness Amos Oz 2002 Israeli Hebrew
903 Wild Swans Jung Chang 1991 Chinese English
918 The Plot Against America Philip Roth 2004 American English
920 The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum Heinrich Böll 1974 German German
938 Burger's Daughter Nadine Gordimer 1979 South African English
957 The Little World Of Don Camillo Giovanni Guareschi 1948 Italian Italian
961 The Manchurian Candidate Richard Condon 1959 American English
965 Eminent Victorians Lytton Strachey 1918 British English
971 The Discovery of Heaven Harry Mulisch 1992 Dutch Dutch
978 The History Of Henry Esmond William Makepeace Thackeray 1852 British English
982 Speedboat Renata Adler 1976 American English
993 Essays of E. B. White E. B. White 1977 American English
1015 Justine Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
1029 Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon Jorge Amado 1958 Brazilian Portuguese
1034 The Bostonians Henry James 1886 American English
1050 The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi 1990 British English
1061 The Hothouse Wolfgang Koeppen 1953 German German
1066 Antony And Cleopatra William Shakespeare 1606 British English
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
1093 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
1094 Gorky Park Martin Cruz Smith 1981 American English
1098 Seven Years in Tibet Heinrich Harrer 1952 Austrian German
1115 The Cairo Trilogy Naguib Mahfouz 1956 Egyptian Arabic
1116 Hadrian the Seventh Frederick Rolfe 1904 British English
1118 Germany, a Winter Tale Heinrich Heine 1844 German German
1131 Ashes and Diamonds Jerzy Andrzejewski 1948 Polish Polish
1158 Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006 Nigerian English
1166 Lanark Alasdair Gray 1981 Scottish English
1175 The Demons Heimito von Doderer 1956 Austrian German
1183 Mr Norris Changes Trains Christopher Isherwood 1935 British English
1200 Mating Norman Rush 1991 American English
1215 Explosion In A Cathedral Alejo Carpentier 1962 Cuban Spanish
1218 The Egyptian Mika Waltari 1945 Finnish Finnish
1242 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis José Saramago 1984 Portuguese Portuguese
1246 Danube Claudio Magris 1986 Italian Italian
1248 The Conservative Mind Russell Kirk 1953 American English
1280 The Death of Artemio Cruz Carlos Fuentes 1962 Mexican Spanish
1281 Mumbo Jumbo Ishmael Reed 1972 American English
1298 The Days of His Grace Eyvind Johnson 1960 Swedish Swedish
1316 The Fountain Overflows Rebecca West 1956 British English
1317 To Each His Own Leonardo Sciascia 1966 Italian Italian
1320 God and Man at Yale William F. Buckley, Jr 1951 American English
1337 A Legacy Sybille Bedford 1956 German English
1363 The Liberal Imagination Lionel Trilling 1950 American English
1375 The Sea of Fertility Yukio Mishima 1965 Japanese Japanese
1383 The Birds Aristophanes -414 Greek Ancient greek
1390 A Brief History of Seven Killings Marlon James 2014 Jamaican English
1394 Soldiers of Salamis Javier Cercas 2001 Spanish Spanish
1419 The Viceroys Federico De Roberto 1894 Italian Italian
1422 The Sot-Weed Factor John Barth 1960 American English
1443 Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon 1997 American English
1469 Last Afternoons With Teresa Juan Marsé 1966 Spanish Spanish
1475 Lettres de madame de Sévigné Marie de Rabutin-Chantal marquise de Sévigné 1671 French French
1485 A Perfect Spy John le Carré 1986 British English
1491 Presumed Innocent Scott Turow 1987 American English
1497 How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Alvarez 1991 Dominican English
1502 The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born Ayi K. Armah 1968 Ghanaian English
1505 The Famished Road Ben Okri 1991 Nigerian English
1508 The Tower William Butler Yeats 1928 Irish English