h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You forgot to qualify that statement with '...for America'. I hardly think that an excitation to rebellion of one pre-country in the entire world happens to be the second most influential book ever. Has the researcher perhaps forgotten of the Qu'ran, causing the majority of Islamic wars and jihads, or maybe Sun Tzu's 'Art Of War' which decided the fate of millions of men. Maybe '...for America' needn't be written because it is ALWAYS BLOODY ASSUMED???

*cough*

*calms down*

Delaration of Independence led to the US revolt, which led to the first true government by social contract. How many countries today have such? Many... including yours. Since it affected so many people in so many countries, it is the most important book in the world, save the Bible.

US independence led the way to independence for the whole Western hemisphere, Australia, New Zealand, and the African continent. It directly inspired revolution in France, and parliamentary reform in the UK. There isn't a single country in Europe that hasn't at least used the US Revolution as a model for how to inspire and conduct one, nor one that didn't refer to the US Constitution when drafting their own (except the UK, of course, who, in another prime example of how counter-evolutionary politics can survive, still lacks one). It's effects are felt in Asia, too... Japan, South Korea, and the Phillippines all have democratic governments based in some way on the US model, even if the Philippinos are having some difficulty with it at the present.

Islamic wars and jihads have had little or no influence on the current geopolitical situation. Sun Tzu's Art of War may have had such influence in the past, but now it takes its place among a host of similar such documents, and much of its teachings are now considered morally incorrect. How was this decided? By governments operating by social contract, acting on the mandates of their people. No such governments existed, and it was deemed impossible that any such could ever come about. Somebody had to be the first.

Hehe. Nice one. Wrote that in a pique of anger. But: if you are saying 'in the history of the world', then you have to include things other than CURRENT geopolitics. Hence, shouldn't the influence other works had at the time also be included? And you should not discount Islamic religion just because all the deaths, all the holy wars, all the nations that united under one banner happened a while ago.

You were piqued? I hadn't noticed... One of the cool things about this site is that if you read something that annoys you, you can usually contact the writer directly, and hopefully clear up any confusion.

When determining the most important works, I look at the current geopolitical situation, and think about how we got there from here. I don't count how many lives were lost, but how our status today was influenced by events of the past. For instance, "Art of War" could have stood side-by-side with Machiavelli's "The Prince." If the current geopolitical situation was similar to that of the late 17th-early 18th centuries, then I would have said that those two works were more important. But, over the last half-century or so, the effects of imperialism have been gradually erased, which was the last vestige of those two works, and their influence on society (other than, obviously, on the battlefield, but even there, they are merely one tool). So, they are now relegated to the annals of history, still valuable as an insight into an ancient world, but not so useful in everyday life today.

You are right about the Qu'ran, though, if for no other reason than that it is the most popular religion in the world, and therefore has an incredible amount of influence on the current world order, and so deserves mention ahead of the Christian Bible. So, a new ordering would be...

1) Qu'ran.
2) Bible
3) Common Sense

But you may notice that I said Common Sense was *possibly* one of the most influential. I gave myself an escape clause, so to speak. Dirty politician's trick, I know...