The classic book on relativism and postmodernism, arguing that we should beware of overarching generalisations and theories about human nature that other cultures, outside western experience, are just as rich in content and that we in the west should avoid imposing our prejudices and predilections on others.“Just as the 20th century dawned with an unparalleled optimism regarding the moral, social and scientific progress of humanity, it ended with an unshakeable confidence in the promises of technology and the power of free-market economics to deliver a better life for all humankind. Local Knowledge by Clifford Geertz (1983) The first of several books that liberated women, in this case by accurately detailing the female predicament and comparing how, in some ways, things were better for women in America than Europe.ġ0. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1947) Thus hove into view the civil rights movement.ĩ. Myrdal's report also said America's institutions, especially congress, had let down the blacks and that in future the courts must be used to improve the situation. The book which told Americans, just as they were returning from saving Europe, that at home they were unremittingly racist. An American Dilemma by Gunnar Myrdal (1944)

It created the welfare state and has shaped the delivery of social services for the past 50 years, not just in Britain but in many other countries too.Ĩ. The Beveridge Report is the bestselling government report apart from Lord Denning's account of the Profumo scandal. Social Insurance and Allied Services by William Beveridge (1942) Now coming back into fashion after being out in the cold in the 1980s and early 90s.ħ. Shaped the views of two generations of economists, helped finance the second world war, and create the welfare state. The classic exposition of 'Keynesianism', which advanced the view that governments can, in certain circumstances, spend their way out of trouble. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes (1936) How the female mind can complement the male mind what literature has lost by the barriers erected against women how these barriers can be overcome.Ħ. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (1929) The book that helped make logical positivism probably the most influential philosophical movement of the 20th century and, at the same time, accounts for our fascination with the position of language in experience.ĥ. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922 in English) The first step on the road to relativism.Ĥ. Proving that primitive man was not so primitive after all. The Mind of Primitive Man by Franz Boas (1911)

The modern mind by peter watson