ISI's Fifty Best Books of the [20th] Century

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The turn of the century is a time to take stock of the path we have followed, the better to discern where we ought to be going. Historical discernment requires coming to judgment about what has been noble, good, and beneficial in our time—but also about what has been base, bad, and harmful. In the life of the mind, what has our century produced that deserves admiration? What has it produced that deserves only contempt?

Prominent on the "Best" list are many volumes of extraordinary reflection and creativity in a traditional form, which heartens us with the knowledge that fine writing and clear-mindedness are perennially possible.

  1. 1.
    The Education of Henry Adams
    by Henry Adams

  2. 2.
    The Abolition of Man
    by C. S. Lewis

  3. 3.
    ?
    Witness
    by Whittaker Chambers

  4. 4.
    ?
    T. S. Eliot - Selected Essays 1917-1932
    by T. S. Eliot

  5. 5.
    ?
    Study of History
    by Arnold Toynbee

  6. 6.

  7. 7.
    Teacher in America
    by Jacques Barzun

  8. 8.
    Samuel Johnson
    by W. Jackson Bate

  9. 9.
    ?
    Understanding Poetry
    by C. Brooks

  10. 10.
    The Whig Interpretation of History
    by Herbert Butterfield

  11. 11.
    ?
    Orthodoxy
    by G. K. Chesterton

  12. 12.
    The Second World War (Six Volume Boxed Set)
    by Winston S. Churchill

  13. 14.
    ?
    Religion and the Rise of the Western Culture
    by Christopher Dawson

  14. 16.
    The Civil War: A Narrative (3 Volume Set)
    by Shelby Foote

  15. 17.
    ?
    R. E. Lee: a Biography
    by Douglas Southall Freeman

  16. 18.
    Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition
    by Milton Friedman

  17. 19.
    Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made
    by Eugene D. Genovese

  18. 20.
    Constitution of Liberty (Routledge Classics)
    by Hayek. F. A.

  19. 22.
    The Death and Life of Great American Cities
    by Jane Jacobs

  20. 24.
    ?
    The Face of Battle
    by John Keegan

  21. 25.
    The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot
    by Russell Kirk

  22. 26.
    The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea
    by Arthur O. Lovejoy

  23. 27.
    After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Second Edition
    by Alasdair MacIntyre

  24. 28.
    Jefferson And His Time, 6 vol. set
    by Dumas Malone

  25. 29.
    ?
    H. L. Mencken: Prejudices
    by James T Farrell

  26. 30.
    The Seven Storey Mountain
    by Thomas Merton

  27. 33.
    The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
    by Flannery O'Connor

  28. 34.
    Homage to Catalonia
    by George Orwell

  29. 35.
    Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book
    by Walker Percy

  30. 36.
    The Making of the Atomic Bomb
    by Richard Rhodes

  31. 39.
    Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
    by Joseph Schumpeter

  32. 40.

  33. 41.
    The Elements of Style (4th Edition)
    by William Strunk

  34. 43.
    The Frontier In American History
    by Frederick Jackson Turner

  35. 44.
    ?
    The New Science of Politics: An Introduction
    by Eric Voegelin

  36. 45.
    Up from Slavery: an autobiography
    by Booker T. Washington

  37. 49.
    The Right Stuff
    by Tom Wolfe

  38. 50.
    Autobiography of Malcolm X
    by Malcolm X

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Created by Jeff Cavanaugh on Jan 31, 2007.
 

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