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Library of Congress picks 88 books that shaped America


Beerball

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24 for me.

 

37 for me. It's obviously a matter of subjectivity, but I have one complaint. If only a small handful of playwrights make that list, nothing by Tennessee Williams should be present. Where's Arthur Miller?

 

I would have voted for Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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Worthy of removal from the list:

 

"American Cookery" by Amelia Simmons (1796)

"The American Woman's Home" by Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1869)

"And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts (1987)

"Beloved" by Toni Morrison (1987)

"Family Limitation" by Margaret Sanger (1914)

"The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin (1963)

"Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown (1947)

"Harriet, the Moses of Her People" by Sarah H. Bradford (1901)

"Howl" by Allen Ginsberg (1956)

"The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" by Frederick Douglass (1845)

"Peter Parley's Universal History" by Samuel Goodrich (1837)

"Red Harvest" by Dashiell Hammett (1929)

"Riders of the Purple Sage" by Zane Grey (1912)

"The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats (1962)

"Spring and All" by William Carlos Williams (1923)

"Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert E. Heinlein (1961)

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith (1943)

"The Weary Blues" by Langston Hughes (1925)

"The Words of Cesar Chavez" by Cesar Chavez (2002)

 

Many of these are revisionist takes on what shaped America, unfortunately. I sincerely doubt those I have chosen had a tremendous impact during the periods they were published and read. "The Words of Cesar Chavez" is really embarrassing as an addition.

 

To not include Alfred Thayer Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt or Francis Parkman is an utter joke.... no The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, are you serious???? The Oregon Trail and Winning the West should be included also!!!!!

 

Where is Edgar Allan Poe? Another mind-boggling omission.

Edited by BmoreBills
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Worthy of removal from the list:

 

"American Cookery" by Amelia Simmons (1796)

"The American Woman's Home" by Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1869)

"And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts (1987)

"Beloved" by Toni Morrison (1987)

"Family Limitation" by Margaret Sanger (1914)

"The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin (1963)

"Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown (1947)

"Harriet, the Moses of Her People" by Sarah H. Bradford (1901)

"Howl" by Allen Ginsberg (1956)

"The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" by Frederick Douglass (1845)

"Peter Parley's Universal History" by Samuel Goodrich (1837)

"Red Harvest" by Dashiell Hammett (1929)

"Riders of the Purple Sage" by Zane Grey (1912)

"The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats (1962)

"Spring and All" by William Carlos Williams (1923)

"Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert E. Heinlein (1961)

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith (1943)

"The Weary Blues" by Langston Hughes (1925)

"The Words of Cesar Chavez" by Cesar Chavez (2002)

 

Many of these are revisionist takes on what shaped America, unfortunately. I sincerely doubt those I have chosen had a tremendous impact during the periods they were published and read. "The Words of Cesar Chavez" is really embarrassing as an addition.

 

To not include Alfred Thayer Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt or Francis Parkman is an utter joke.... no The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, are you serious???? The Oregon Trail and Winning the West should be included also!!!!!

 

Where is Edgar Allan Poe? Another mind-boggling omission.

 

Howl wasn't significant when it was published?? Now, I personally think Ginsberg was a pretentious hack, but that thing was a whirlwind.

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Howl wasn't significant when it was published?? Now, I personally think Ginsberg was a pretentious hack, but that thing was a whirlwind.

Toni Morrison is one of the finest American novelists around. American Cookery is just damn fascinating- and it is part of our history. The Weary Blues is a great read by an important early black poet. To each their own

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Howl wasn't significant when it was published?? Now, I personally think Ginsberg was a pretentious hack, but that thing was a whirlwind.

 

There are very few books written by Americans that have had more impact than Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. To not include it and to include the others that I listed before it is a travesty.

 

Appearing at a time when Japan and the nations of Europe were engaged in a fiercely competitive arms race, Mahan’s work had a singularly profound influence on politics worldwide. In the United States, Mahan’s theories found a particularly receptive audience in Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt: His work bolstered the case for rapid expansion and reconfiguration of the U.S. Navy, which replaced small cruisers with massive battleships and underwent a concomitant change in tactics; continued expansion overseas (to the Philippines, Hawaii and other Pacific islands, and the Caribbean), which allowed the creation bases at which U.S. ships could refuel and protect commerce; and even the construction of the Panama Canal, which facilitated the movement of fleets and freight. Mahan’s work influenced strategists in other countries as well, leading to naval buildups in England, Germany, and Japan in particular. Although Mahan saw military might as a means for avoiding war, the global growth inspired by his theories very clearly set the stage for World War I.

 

http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/alfred_thayer_mahan.html

Edited by BmoreBills
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