12 Books That Changed The World

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12 Books That Changed The World
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UK / ITV1 Network / 4×60 minutes / April 2006

Writer/Producer: Melvyn Bragg

Documentary. Melvyn Bragg delves into twelve of the essential books that he believes have changed the world. The impact of certain books is like that of the asteroid which destroyed the dinosaurs: an epoch-defining moment which ends the old world, and ushers in the new. Geographical contours may shape the physical world, but the intellectual contours in which six billion people live, are all shaped by books.

The 12 books were

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NEWTON: PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA (1687)
MARIE STOPES: MARRIED LOVE (1918)
THE FIRST RULE BOOK OF THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION (1863)
DARWIN: THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES (1859)
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN (1792)
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE: SPEECH TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (12th May 1789)
ADAM SMITH: THE WEALTH OF NATIONS (1776)
THE KING JAMES BIBLE (1611)
MAGNA CARTA (1215)
MICHAEL FARADAY: EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH IN ELECTRICITY (1855)
PATENT SPECIFICATION FOR ARKWRIGHT’S SPINNING MACHINE (1769)
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S FIRST FOLIO (1623)

Amongst those taking part were Lord Woolf, former Lord Chief Justice, Professor Harold Bloom, Professor Frank James, Jonathon Porritt Founder Director of Forum for the Future, William Hague MP, Germaine Greer, Professor Richard Dawkins, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford University and Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Head of Theoretical Nuclear Physics Group, University of Surrey and Professor of Public Engagement in Science.

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PROGRAMME ONE
NEWTON: PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA (1687)
MARIE STOPES: MARRIED LOVE (1918)
THE FIRST RULE BOOK OF THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION (1863)

NEWTON: PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA (1687)

Isaac Newton’s groundbreaking discoveries, published in the Principia, made him the culminating figure of the scientific revolution of the 17th century.
The three laws of motion and the laws of gravitation, which Newton formulated in this book, are the foundation of modern physics and the science of mechanics. Newton gave us a radical new understanding of the forces that operate in the universe. His deductions from famously watching the fall of an apple gave us the formulae that have been used – unaltered – ever since.
In optics, his discovery of the composition of white light integrated the phenomena of colours into the science of light, and laid the foundation for modern physical optics. In mechanics, his three laws of motion (the basic principles of modern physics) resulted in the formulation of the law of universal gravitation. In mathematics, he was the first to discover the infinitesimal calculus.
As a result, his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) published in 1687, was one of the most important single works in the history of modern science.

Contributors include:
Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Head of Theoretical Nuclear Physics Group, University of Surrey and Professor of Public Engagement in Science.
Produced and directed by Robert Bee

MARIE STOPES: MARRIED LOVE (1918)

Stopes always intended that sexual ecstasy should be restricted to marital union, but despite her good intentions, she invited controversy because of her explicit attitudes on the subject and frank advocacy of birth control. Her book, Married Love, changed the way women controlled and enjoyed their bodies.

In 1915, Marie Stopes told the American advocate of birth control, Margaret Sanger, that she was finishing a book, “which will probably electrify this country”. Married Love was indeed an immediate success, selling 2,000 copies within a fortnight – and by the end of the year it had been reprinted six times. Married Love went on to worldwide notoriety and success, (despite an initial ban in America for being too ‘obscene’) and now has probably sold more copies than any other marriage guidance / sexual technique manual.

Stopes’ writing transformed the way people all over the world think about female sexual pleasure. Married Love initiated the modern marriage manual genre, to the extent where people thought of Stopes and marriage advice (and also to some extent birth control) as almost synonymous. It was also very important in its emphasis on the existence of female sexual pleasure and the right to sexual satisfaction – and as a result had a profound cultural and social worldwide significance.

Swamped with requests for birth control advice whilst editor of the journal Birth Control News, Stopes opened a clinic in Holloway, North London, offering free contraceptive advice to poor mothers. A huge success, this led to the foundation of the National Birth Control Association which became the Family Planning Association in 1931.

Contributors include:
Marie’s only child, Harry Stopes-Roe.
Sam Roddick, owner of the erotic boutique Coco de Mer.

Produced and directed by Daniel Wiles

THE FIRST RULE BOOK OF THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION (1863)

The First Rule Book Of The Football Association was published for the FA by John Lillywhites of Euston Square and sold for a shilling. It gave shape to what has become the greatest game on earth.

Immediately after 1863 it travelled the world becoming a story of British economic and social history and also a story of cultural interaction with the game as it evolved in different countries. Amongst all this are wonderful stories about how the game itself was played.

Football is one of the international touchstones of the modern world. In practically every country on earth it provides a key component in the formation of a national consciousness, and on an individual level it animates many people’s interactions with the world around them: male newspaper readers of almost any nationality tend to read the back pages first.

Football is a potent a force. It has brought down governments, incited wars, and it can bring moments of international harmony. And yet the game that is played today was essentially devised by a group of Victorian Oxbridge graduates. The writing of the FA rules proved to be a decisive act in the development of the sport as an international phenomenon. A few hours spent drawing up the rules in a London pub changed the face of 20th century entertainment (and, many would say, the 20th century itself) and was to have an enormous effect on the world.

Highlights include:
The re-staging of the first match ever played by FA Rules, with no penalties, no offside rule – and no referee.

Produced and directed by David Thomas

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PROGRAMME TWO
DARWIN: THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES (1859)
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN (1792)
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE: SPEECH TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (12th May 1789)

DARWIN: THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES (1859)

For a book so famous, for a book which nobody doubts helped shape the modern world, for a book which led its author to be dubbed “the most dangerous man in Britain”, it is something of a shock to find that The Origin Of Species deals almost exclusively in the genealogy of several plants and animals. And yet that is precisely why The Origin was so sensational.

This text shuddered through the religious establishment when it demonstrated the evidence for a common ancestry between men and apes. The theory of evolution through natural selection has become one of the cornerstones of our understanding of the world. In copious detail the book laid out the evidence for evolution as an undeniable process, with natural selection as its driving force.

In doing so it demolished beliefs in the fixity of the species, and seriously challenged views about both the nature of man and the presence of God in the natural world. Its challenge to the biblical creation story still causes controversy.

Contributors include:
Professor Richard Dawkins, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford University.

Produced and directed by David Thomas

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN (1792)

Published in 1792, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was the first great feminist treatise. Wollstonecraft preached that intellect will always govern and sought “to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness.”
In Vindication, Wollstonecraft appeals to egalitarian social philosophy as the basis for the creation and preservation of equal rights and opportunities for women. The foundation of morality in all human beings, male or female, is their common possession of the faculty of reason, Wollstonecraft argues, and women must claim their equality by accepting its unemotional dictates.
In her mind, equal and adequate education for women is key to their success and progression. Excessive concern for romantic love and physical desirability are not the natural conditions of female existence but rather the socially-imposed means by which male domination enslaves them.
Mary Wollstonecraft’s exploration of the integration of sense and reason, imagination and thought, looks toward 19th century thought, and was part of the movement from Enlightenment to Romanticism.

Her ideas on public versus private life, politics and domestic spheres – and on men and women – were important influences on the thought and development of philosophy and political ideas that still resonate today.

Contributors include:
Germaine Greer.

Produced and directed by Jonathan Levi

WILLIAM WILBERFORCE: SPEECH TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (12th MAY 1789)

On 12th May 1789, William Wilberforce’s speech in the House of Commons calling for the slave trade to be abolished was one of the most significant moments in the history of the abolition movement. But it is in print, as a book, that it has had its greatest influence.

Wilberforce’s speech was widely interpreted – even at the time – as a crushing blow to the slave trade. After this speech the trade was stripped of any moral legitimacy in the public mind.

Wilberforce delivered what is still regarded as one of the greatest speeches given in the Commons. Various transcriptions in newspapers, pamphlets, anthologies and journals across Britain galvanised public support for abolition.

There was no official record of speeches made to Parliament at the time. As a result, there are around thirty newspaper reports of Wilberforce’s long-trailed and eagerly awaited speech. One of the clearest and most emotive was published in a contemporary journal, The Parliamentary Register, 26, 1789 (the first edition of which is available in the British Library).

The speech, coming months before the French Revolution, marked the movement of the world, and Britain in particular, into a more recognisably humanitarian era.

Contributors include:
William Hague MP.

Produced and directed by Robert Bee
THE STORIES

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PROGRAMME THREE
ADAM SMITH: THE WEALTH OF NATIONS (1776)
THE KING JAMES BIBLE (1611)
MAGNA CARTA (1215)

ADAM SMITH: THE WEALTH OF NATIONS (1776)

The Scottish philosopher gave birth to the modern belief in the free market. Smith argued that the invisible hand of competition will guide an economic system based on individual self-interest. His influence still steers economic policy through the world today and has massively influenced social policy through the whole of the Western world.

The Wealth of Nations has had a number of impressive claims made about it since its publication on 9 March, 1776. It has been described as the founding text in modern economics, the Bible of Capitalism and Reagan and Thatcher’s equivalent to Mao’s Little Red Book. Although in recent years it has been primarily co-opted by groups broadly under a right-wing banner, it has also been lionised by many on the left as a precursor to Marx. Printed in the same year as the American Declaration of Independence, the book is regarded as coming at, and helping to precipitate, a crucial juncture in world history. It is one of the founding texts of the modern world.

The book has had a great practical influence, and often of a conflicting nature: it was the basis of many of Pitt the Younger’s economic reforms, yet it was also regarded as an influence on the French Revolution which was to upset so many of Pitt’s economic plans. The book is demonised by those who think its Free Trade principles have been instrumental in bringing poverty to the third world. However, the book’s direct influence also helped to make the once destitute Hong Kong one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Many who presume the book expounds a callous heartlessness are surprised, on reading it, to find the extent of Smith’s scruples about a ruthless capitalist system, and how far he suggests state involvement in people’s lives. In short the book is a voluminous and comprehensive study of the economic reality of Smith’s world, encompassing hundreds of examples. Indeed, one near contemporary of Smith’s (Jean Baptiste Say) described The Wealth of Nations as a “vast chaos of just ideas, pell-mell with pieces of positive knowledge”. From these Smith is able to extract some basic principles which have – to some degree or another – formed the basis of western governmental thinking for over two centuries.

Contributors include:
Professor Julian Le Grand.
Richard Titmuss Professor of Social Policy, LSE and former adviser at No 10 Downing Street.
Dr.Madsen Pirie President, Adam Smith Institute.
Jonathon Porritt Founder Director of Forum for the Future.

Produced and directed by Robert Bee

THE KING JAMES BIBLE (1611)

This “translation to end all translations” was the result of the combined effort of about fifty scholars. They relied most heavily on Tyndale’s Old and New Testament and also on The Coverdale Bible, The Matthews Bible, The Great Bible, The Geneva Bible, and even used the Rheims New Testament. The great revision of the Bishop’s Bible had begun. From 1605 to 1606 the scholars engaged in private research. From 1607 to 1609 the work was assembled. In 1610 the work went to press, and in 1611 the first of the huge (16 inch tall) pulpit folios known as The King James Bible came off the printing press.

The King James Bible is the bestselling version of the bible in the English language. For many centuries it was, and to a large extent it remains, the standard scriptural text across the English-speaking world.

The contours and rhythms of its prose have been enormously influential in shaping the English language in every sphere: it influenced the way we speak on a day-to-day basis, creating and enshrining still familiar phrases; it proved an enormous influence on English-language writers, from Shakespeare to Milton, and beyond; and it formulated the English sense of formality and occasion – it largely shaped and cemented the attitude English-speaking people have to ceremony and seriousness. The book was underpinned and often validated two Empires, the British and the American.

Besides this, on a more spiritual level, this translation has been one of the main sources of comfort for English-speaking people all across the world for many centuries. Since 1899, the Gideon International Society has laboured to provide a copy of the Bible in every hotel, motel, hospital, nursing home, prison, youth-camp, military base, and doctor’s office across the Anglo-sphere. This partially explains the King James version’s sales figures.

As the Gideon Society’s website says: Annually, The Gideons International is placing and distributing more than 59,000,000 Scriptures worldwide. To God be the glory! This averages one million copies of the Word of God placed every seven days, or 112 per minute!

No other work of literature, not even the plays of Shakespeare, has so entered the conscious and subconscious minds of so many people across the world.

Produced and directed by Jonathan Levi

MAGNA CARTA (1215)

Magna Carta established for the first time a key constitutional principle – that the power of the king could be limited by a written grant. This principle is the cornerstone of the British constitutional and legal system. The royal chancery produced a formal royal grant, which became known as Magna Carta (Latin for the ‘Great Charter’).

Magna Carta limited the power of English Monarchs, specifically King John, from absolute rule. The result of disagreements between the Pope and King John and his barons over the rights of the king, it was an attempt to codify the relationships between the three great power blocks in the land: the King and his state apparatus, the Church led by the Pope, and the barons with their castles and great estates. It required the king to renounce certain rights and respect certain legal procedures, and to accept that the will of the king could be bound by law. It was the first step in a long historical process leading to the rule of constitutional law.

The Magna Carta was the product of a society accustomed to dealing with the problems and privileges of freedom: freedom from slavery or from serfdom, the freedom of boroughs, the freedom of the church and the freedom of trade. The charter still retains its iconic status today – anyone with a cause against the government of the day is very likely to defend his or her right to protest by referring to Magna Carta.

Although there is nothing in the document about the right to protest, there is a sense in which Magna Carta in its entirety represents protest. It was in origin the product of direct political action, of negotiation after rebellion. As a symbol of the struggle against tyranny, it will always retain its value.

Contributors include:
Lord Woolf, former Lord Chief Justice.

Produced and directed by Daniel Wiles

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PROGRAMME FOUR
MICHAEL FARADAY: EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH IN ELECTRICITY (1855)
PATENT SPECIFICATION FOR ARKWRIGHT’S SPINNING MACHINE (1769)
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S FIRST FOLIO (1623)

MICHAEL FARADAY: EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH IN ELECTRICITY (1855)

Faraday’s work illuminated the connection between magnetism and electrical current. He changed the idea of what electricity was and in doing so made possible its generation and the harnessing of its power, without which modern life would be impossible. Every time we turn on a light we owe a debt of gratitude to Faraday.

Faraday’s discoveries made electricity useful. He was the first to demonstrate the principle of electromagnetic induction in 1831. He showed that a magnet could induce an electrical current in a wire. This enabled mechanical energy to be converted into electrical energy, the principle behind the electric motor. In 1845 he discovered that an intense magnetic field can rotate the plane of polarised light – this became known as the Faraday Effect; the phenomenon has been used to work out molecular structures and has provided information about galactic magnetic fields.

Michael Faraday was born in Newington Butts (the area of London now known as the Elephant and Castle) on 22 September 1791. His family had recently arrived in London from Yorkshire, and were far from wealthy (at one time Faraday was forced to subsist on a single loaf of bread a week). His parents were followers of the Sandemanians, a small non-conformist Christian sect, of which Faraday would be a devout follower throughout his life.

Contributors include:
Professor Frank James, Royal Institution.

Produced and directed by Daniel Wiles

PATENT SPECIFICATION FOR ARKWRIGHT’S SPINNING MACHINE (1769)

In 1769, Richard Arkwright took out a patent on his spinning machine: by law, no-one could copy it and Arkwright was able to reproduce it throughout his own mills, for his own benefit. Arkwright’s spinning machine spearheaded the events of the textile revolution, sparking off a chain of developments that would form the crux of the Industrial Revolution, broadening the horizons of every man and woman in Britain – and subsequently the world.

Industrialists had been looking for a better machine, one which could be worked by unskilled labour and could be installed in a mill where it could be driven by power. It was the breakthrough in power spinning they had required: first in cotton, then wool and finally in flax or linen.
As a direct result of the patent for his spinning machine, Arkwright became the world’s first great industrialist, revolutionising the production of yarn and developing the factory system that turned Britain into the workshop of the world. Although silk mills had existed for fifty years previously, Arkwright invented the organisation and regimentation of labour in one specialised workplace, giving the employer total control over the product and the means and cost of its production. As the potential market for cheap cotton products expanded, Arkwright’s efforts at Cromford in Derbyshire (and subsequently in Lancashire and Scotland) triggered the leap in national productivity that helped to spur the Industrial Revolution.
Moreover, through the growing export trade, the cotton industry provided outlets for new ideas in steam engine design, iron manufacture etc. These ideas could now find a practical application on a far larger scale than would have been possible otherwise.

Produced and directed by Jonathan Levi

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S FIRST FOLIO (1623)

The First Folio edition of the collected plays of William Shakespeare was published in 1623, some seven years after his death. Only 18 of Shakespeare’s plays appeared in print during his lifetime, and some of these were in corrupt or pirated editions.

The First Folio was the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays – without which many of his works would have been lost. This collection contains 36, 18 of which were published for the first time, thus saving such works as The Tempest, Anthony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night and Macbeth from probable extinction.

Without the Folio, Shakespeare’s history plays would have lacked their beginning and their end, his only Roman play would have been Titus Andronicus and there would have been three, not four, ‘great tragedies’.

Shorn of these 18 plays, Shakespeare would not have been the pre-eminent dramatist that he is now; the English language would have been far less rich; countless works of art of many kinds inspired by these plays could not have come into existence; and the careers of most great actors and directors would have been different.

It is argued that not only Shakespeare’s language, but his characteristics, his philosophy and his methods of thought, were essential in creating the Modern World.

Contributors include:
Professor Harold Bloom.

Produced and directed by David Thomas

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