My Daunting Project

Not so long back I chanced upon this article dated October 6, 1995 from the TLS titled "100 Most Influential Books since World War II". Of the authors listed, I recognised just one - Amartya Sen. I had read two of his books and liked his style of writing. The titles in the list appeared incomprehensible given my sketchy education and minuscle interest in subjects like social science, politics and philosophy. I saw little profit in the pursuit of this list and set it aside. But I was reminded of it again and again while reading the epub version of 'The Modern Mind' by Peter Watson. Here was a cronicle of Western intellectual development that alluded to several books mentioned in the list. What could an uninitiated person get from reading these tomes? I decided to find out. So here is my progress in no particular order:

  1. Isaiah Berlin: Russian Thinkers [unfinished]
  2. Thomas Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (PB Sept 2018)
  3. Raymond Aron: Memoirs [reading]
  4. Daniel Bell: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (HB Jun 2020)
  5. Paul Kennedy: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (PB Dec 2018)
  6. Richard H. Crossman: The God That Failed (PB Jun 2020)
  7. Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism [reading]
  8. Roger Penrose: The Emperor’s New Mind [unfinished]

Books not in the above list that have influenced me considerably are:

  1. Ways of Thinking of Eastern People by Hajime Nakamura (HB, Jun 2020)
  2. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (PB, Jan 2018, Oct 2018)
  3. Early Indians by Tony Joseph (HB, Jul 2020)
  4. Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (PB, Nov 2017, Jun 2019)
  5. History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (PB, Nov 2013, Mar 2021)