User talk:Barnaby dawson/100 books

What, no Holy Bible? -- Abstract

It's post 1740. Barnaby dawson (talk) 00:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to ruin your list so thought I would edit here. Firstly, I wouldn't waste a book on John Locke because all his works are already published. Secondly, I don't know how objective you are trying to be in your list. You've gone with Popper instead of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which is the most cited book in academia after the Bible, so really it has more reason to be here than The Origin of Species. Thirdly, The Handmaid's Tale? Really? You only have a few novels and it is a disgustingly bad one compared to say, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Fourthly, I can't believe you reserve a book for jazz but nothing about apartheid or the black civil rights movement! (Something feminist which isn't a novel perhaps ought to be in too) Fifthly, I think von Neumann and Morgenstern is the best candidate for your game theory book. Sixthly, why is Why I Am Not A Christian by Russell even here?? It's not like Russell was the first atheist. Why not A History of Western Philosophy? I would otherwise suggest Hume's Enquiries and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason but maybe Russell could account for both of them. Also, maybe Wittgenstein. Plus if you're going to have Godel then I don't see why Frege fails to get in. Frege surely trumps Godel.


 * I'd add Guns, Germs, and Steel. Maybe also Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, both by Jared Diamond- gadfium 04:24, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The UN Charter, really? I'd think the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be superior; less about tedious nuts and bolts of an organization, more about moral/philosophical principles; though I suppose the preamble to the Charter is inspiring. --Cyber cobra (talk) 10:07, 18 September 2009 (UTC)