List of controversial non-fiction books
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(Redirected from Controversial book)
This is a list of controversial non-fiction books aimed at the general reader which discuss controversial issues, or are (or were at the time of writing) controversial for other reasons. For controversial fictional books, see list of banned books.
The intention is to provide
- a reading list of the pivotal works, good or bad, in controversial subjects
- a list of books and authors that may be good candidates for new articles
Criteria for inclusion:
- This list is intended to be selective, not exhaustive.
- The standard for books written in the last 40 years is necessarily weaker than that for older books, as there is no way of knowing whether these books will be as highly regarded (or reviled) in the decades to come. Their topical nature makes them important, and so they should be included here.
- verifiable references for the existence and size of the controversy must be provided
Additional books may be found at Category:Controversial books.
- This list is alphabetical by topic, and books should be ordered by publication date within topics
| Contents |
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Agriculture
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Anthropology
- 1928: Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
- 1997: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
- 2000: Darkness in El Dorado by Patrick Tierney
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Artificial intelligence and the nature of consciousness
- 1976: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
- 1986: The Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky
- 1990: The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose
- 1991: Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett
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Astronomy
- 1543: De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium by Nicolaus Copernicus
- 1632: Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei
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Business and bureaucracy
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Cosmology
- 1986: The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler
- 1987: Quasar, Redshifts and Controversies by Halton Arp
- 1998: Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology, and Academic Science by Halton Arp
- 2002: A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram
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Drug culture
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Environmentalism
- 1798: An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus
- 1962: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
- 1968: The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich
- 1972: The Limits to Growth; A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind
- 1981: The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon
- 2001: The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjørn Lomborg
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Evolution
- 1859: The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
- 1972: The Descent of Woman by Elaine Morgan
- 1976: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
- 1995: Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett
- 1996: Darwin's Black Box by Michael J. Bethe
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Feminist theory
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Futurology
- 1970: Future Shock by Alvin Toffler
- 1982: Megatrends by John Naisbitt
- 2003: Our Final Hour (UK title: Our Final Century) by Martin Rees
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Globalization
- 1968: War and Peace in the Global Village by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
- 2000: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies by Naomi Klein
- 2002: World on Fire:How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability by Amy Chua
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History
- 1985: From Time Immemorial (book) by Joan Peters
- 1987: Black Athena (volume I) by Martin Bernal
- 1992: The End of History by Francis Fukuyama
- 1994: Empirico-Statistical Analysis of Narrative Material and Its Applications to Historical Dating: The Development of the Statistical Tools by Anatoly Timofeevich Fomenko
- 1996: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
- 1996: Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Goldhagen
- 1999: New Methods of Statistical Analysis of Historical Texts: Applications to Chronology by Anatoly Timofeevich Fomenko
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Media
- 1957: The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard
- 1964: Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan
- 1967: The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan
- 1977: Mass-Mediated Culture by Michael R. Real
- 1985: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
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Philosophy of science
- 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
- 1975 Against Method by Paul Feyerabend
- 1998 Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by E. O. Wilson.
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Politics
- 1512: The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
- 1651: Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
- 1791: The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
- 1848: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
- 1925/1926: Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
- 1960: On Thermonuclear War by Herman Kahn
- 1968: Coup D'État by Edward Luttwak
- 1970: The Islamic Declaration [1] (http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/politics/papers/Islamic_Declaration_1990_reprint_English.pdf) by Alija Izetbegovic
- 2001: Stupid White Men by Michael Moore
- 2003: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
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Psychiatry
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Race and intelligence
- 1981/1996: The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
- 1994: The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray
- 2002: IQ and the Wealth of Nations by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen
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Religion
- Bible
- 1795: The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
- 1950: Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard
- 1970: The Late, Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey
- 1982: Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln
- 1988: Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism by John Shelby Spong
- 1989: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
- 1997: The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin
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Sociology
- 1956: The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills
- 1948: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred Kinsey
- 1953: Sexual Behavior in the Human Female by Alfred Kinsey
- 2002: Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex by Judith Levine
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