"The 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Century"

This page was a companion to the Summer 1999 exhibit in the display case inside the entrance to the Mathematics Library, 310 Vincent Hall.

Last year Modern Library, a commercial publisher, ignited controversy by producing a list of the one hundred "best" novels (first published in English) of the century. Modern Library says the list is not meant to be definitive but has accomplished its purpose by generating discussion about books and by stimulating reading, as the sky-rocketing sales of books on their list would indicate. Now they have followed up with a list of the one hundred "best" nonfiction books of the century. These were chosen by the editorial board of Modern Library "for their literary and intellectual merit." Two mathematics books appear, at numbers 23 and 87: Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, and A Mathematician's Apology by G. H. Hardy. Landmark books indeed, but their inclusion is perhaps remarkable because only one scientist-Stephen Jay Gould-was among the voting members, and none of the board could vote for books they hadn't read. [Other restrictions: a board member could not vote for his/her own books (you'll notice that Gould made it onto the list), only one book by any author could be included, and candidate books again had to have been published first in English.]

A copy of the nonfiction list, and where the books may be found at the University of Minnesota Libraries, is available at the Mathematics Library circulation desk and below.

More Information

For more information on the Modern Library lists:

The Modern Library website has both the fiction and nonfiction lists, as well as some of the debate; you can also vote for your own nominations on the Reader's List (although your opinion may be swamped by the determined Ayn Rand voting bloc).
The New York Times website has an essay about the Modern Library lists by A.S. Byatt, who participated in creating them; this page (in the Books section) also has links to related New York Times stories and discussion.

For more information on Principia Mathematica:

Reviews of the book in various mathematics and philosophy journals are listed in Grinstein's Mathematical Book Review Index 1800-1940, p. 406 (in the reference section of the Mathematics Library, QA36 .G75x 1992). One that's missing from the index: B. A. Bernstein, Bulletin of the AMS v. 33 (1926): 711-713. One review is available electronically: M. R. Cohen, Philosophical Review v. 32 (January 1912):87-91.
The significance of Principia Mathematica is discussed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

For more information on A Mathematician's Apology:

Book reviews in various mathematics journals are listed in Grinstein's Mathematical Book Review Index 1800-1940, p. 159 (in the reference section of the Mathematics Library, QA36 .G75x 1992).
C.P. Snow contributed an insightful foreword to later printings; see, for example, the copy on reserve in the Mathematics Library.

"The 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Century"

according to Modern Library, 4/29/1999
(call numbers refer to locations within the University of Minnesota Libraries)

1. The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams*
2. The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James*
3. Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington*
4. A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
5. Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
6. Selected Essays, 1917-1932, T. S. Eliot
7. The Double Helix, James D. Watson
8. Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov
9. The American Language, H. L. Mencken
10. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, And Money, John Maynard Keynes
11. The Lives of a Cell, Lewis Thomas
12. The Frontier in American History, Frederick Jackson Turner
13. Black Boy, Richard Wright
14. Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster
15. The Civil War, Shelby Foote*
16. The Guns of August, Barbara W. Tuchman
17. The Proper Study of Mankind, Isaiah Berlin
18. The Nature and Destiny of Man, Reinhold Niebuhr
19. Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin
20. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein*
21. The Elements of Style, William Strunk And E. B. White
22. An American Dilemma, Gunnar Myrdal
23. Principia Mathematica, Alfred North Whitehead And Bertrand Russell
24. The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould
25. The Mirror and the Lamp, Meyer Howard Abrams
26. The Art of the Soluble, Peter B. Medawar
27. The Ants, Bert Hoelldobler And Edward O. Wilson
28. A Theory of Justice, John Rawls
29. Art and Illusion, Ernest H. Gombrich
30. The Making of the English Working Class, E. P. Thompson
31. The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois*
32. Principia Ethica, G. E. Moore
33. Philosophy and Civilization, John Dewey
34. On Growth and Form, D'arcy Wentworth Thompson*
35. Ideas and Opinions, Albert Einstein*
36. The Age of Jackson, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
37. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes
38. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West
39. Autobiographies, W. B. Yeats
40. Science and Civilization in China, Joseph Needham
41. Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves
42. Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
43. The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Mark Twain
44. Children of Crisis, Robert Coles
45. A Study of History, Arnold J. Toynbee
46. The Affluent Society, John Kenneth Galbraith
47. Present at the Creation, Dean Acheson
48. The Great Bridge, David Mccullough
49. Patriotic Gore, Edmund Wilson
50. Samuel Johnson, Walter Jackson Bate
51. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley And Malcolm X
52. The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe
53. Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey*
54. Working, Studs Terkel
55. Darkness Visible, William Styron
56. The Liberal Imagination, Lionel Trilling
57. The Second World War, Winston Churchill
58. Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen*
59. Jefferson and His Times, Dumas Malone
60. In The American Grain, William Carlos Williams
61. Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner
62. The House of Morgan, Ron Chernow
63. The Sweet Science, A. J. Liebling
64. The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper
65. The Art of Memory, Frances A. Yates
66. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, R. H. Tawney
67. A Preface to Morals, Walter Lippmann
68. The Gate of Heavenly Peace, Jonathan D. Spence
69. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn
70. The Strange Career of Jim Crow, C. Vann Woodward
71. The Rise of the West, William H. Mcneill
72. The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels
73. James Joyce, Richard Ellmann
74. Florence Nightingale, Cecil Woodham-Smith
75. The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell
76. The City in History, Lewis Mumford
77. Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. Mcpherson
78. Why We Can't Wait, Martin Luther King Jr.
79. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris
80. Studies in Iconology, Erwin Panofsky
81. The Face of Battle, John Keegan
82. The Strange Death of Liberal England, George Dangerfield
83. Vermeer, Lawrence Gowing
84. A Bright Shining Lie, Neil Sheehan
85. West with the Night, Beryl Markham
86. This Boy's Life, Tobias Wolff
87. A Mathematician's Apology, G. H. Hardy
88. Six Easy Pieces, Richard P. Feynman
89. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
90. The Golden Bough, James George Frazer
91. Shadow and Act, Ralph Ellison
92. The Power Broker, Robert A. Caro
93. The American Political Tradition, Richard Hofstadter
94. The Contours of American History, William Appleman Williams
95. The Promise of American Life, Herbert Croly
96. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote*
97. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcolm
98. The Taming of Chance, Ian Hacking
99. Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott
100. Melbourne, Lord David Cecil

* Published, or soon to be published, by the Modern Library.

Comments: library@math.umn.edu
Copyright: 1996 Regents of the University of Minnesota, University Libraries
Revised: 19 May 1999
URL: http://math.lib.umn.edu/bestbooks.html
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