46 Books That Changed the World

mentalfloss.com

8 pointsalraj5 comments

A more fitting title would be: "46 Books that American Intellectuals and Academics Talk About the Most".

When it puts Diamond Sutra on top, I thought that this list is going to be interesting.

But then I saw it didn't include Bhagavad Gita, The Quran, or anything from China or Japan- I was disappointed and saw this as another list.

There were other books that moved more mass of people, changed history in more profound and lasting ways thatn the ones listed here.

It is an interesting list. However, a better title would be "46 Books that changed America".

There are 34 instances of the word America/American in the article for 46 books and most of the authors on the list would be English speaking or American. As a result, this list provides a very American centric view of literature, history and experiences.

I imagine there is some term for a journalistic fallacy where the writer says everyone, the world, etc. but they actually mean the USA or some subset of it.

A sort of parochialism which claims to be universal.

Well...they really are following precedent, e.g. World Series baseball. :-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com