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100 Documents That Changed the World: From Magna Carta to WikiLeaks
100 Documents That Changed the World brings together the most important written agreements, declarations and statements in history. The documents included here have changed the course of history by rewriting laws, granting freedoms and laying out constitutions. But as well as official charters and presidential proclamations, there are also the hand-written documents that have gone on to shape the way we think, the scrawled notes that mark breakthroughs in the worlds of science and technology, and the annotated manuscripts that have become literary landmarks. Documents included: Magna Carta (1215); Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623); Declaration of independence (1776); Constitution of the United States (1787); Louisiana Purchase (1803); Darwin’s Evolutionary Tree (1837); Gettysburg Address (1863); Treaty of Versailles (1919); German Surrender (1945); Martin Luther King, Jr's “I Have A Dream” speech (1963); First Website (1991); Edward Snowden Files (2013).
512 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 10, 2015
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June 15, 2021Happy Magna Carta Day!
Are you a non-history buff?
Is your high school history class a distant, hazy memory?
Well, here’s a great book for you!
This is an interesting, simple compilation of 100 documents that were influential throughout history for any number of reasons. Each document is given a brief synopsis spanning 1 page and is accompanied by a full-page photo/illustration of the document in question.
The book starts back in 2800 BC with the I Ching, and moves through history chronologically making note of historic documents such as: the Gandharan Buddhist Texts (AD 50), First Printed Newspaper in English (1665), Roget’s Thesaurus (1852), Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), and finally ending with the Edward Snowden Files (2013).
Read this and surprise your friends with some impressive historical knowledge! -Hannah V.
Are you a non-history buff?
Is your high school history class a distant, hazy memory?
Well, here’s a great book for you!
This is an interesting, simple compilation of 100 documents that were influential throughout history for any number of reasons. Each document is given a brief synopsis spanning 1 page and is accompanied by a full-page photo/illustration of the document in question.
The book starts back in 2800 BC with the I Ching, and moves through history chronologically making note of historic documents such as: the Gandharan Buddhist Texts (AD 50), First Printed Newspaper in English (1665), Roget’s Thesaurus (1852), Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), and finally ending with the Edward Snowden Files (2013).
Read this and surprise your friends with some impressive historical knowledge! -Hannah V.
May 1, 2018
A good book that presents documents which influenced the course of the history from ancient times to Snowden Files and Wikileaks..
The colored pictures of the manuscripts make reading this book more enjoyable, and more thrilling..
The colored pictures of the manuscripts make reading this book more enjoyable, and more thrilling..
January 16, 2017
A really fun and interesting book. Good for conversation around the dinner table. I learned about several documents I had never heard of and because the book only has a couple of pages for each document, you will definitely want to go read more about many of them. I also like how the book included information about museums and other collections where original copies are kept.
July 29, 2017
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I really love books like this, the '50 Objects..." or "12 Maps..." that 'changed the world' type books. This book is no exception, as it covered several documents that truly did change the world, for better or worse. While I disagree somewhat with some of the items included ('War and Peace' and '1984' - I do not consider books to be documents per se), the majority really do help the book live up to its name. How can you go wrong when writing about Magna Carta, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Apollo 11 Flight Plan, and Anne Frank's diary in one volume?
Turns out, you can. Or, at least not 'go wrong', but you can be lacking in detail and description at times. I understand this is not meant to be exhaustive, seeing as how it is quite slim to begin with, so I will get my complaints out of the way before I delve further in to discuss some of the specific documents addressed that I felt were among the most important. There is only one actual page of textual information devoted to each document, though that page often included a small picture of those who signed, witnessed, wrote, etc. the document. The opposite page was usually a picture of the document itself. Additionally, for a good portion of the beginning, nearly all of the documents were from Western Europe. Not all, but a good majority. Surely there were other important documents that could have been included from around the world and not just those few.
Now, to the documents I found most fascinating - it is also kind of embarrassing to admit that I did not know some of the facts I learned from this text. In my defense perhaps we were not taught those aspects in school? So many of these documents today exist now in the National Archives and I wish desperately to see them - namely the Fort Sumter Telegram announcing they were surrendering, and the Emancipation Proclamation. These were two hugely important documents that exist as a testament to the resolve of our young country - we were willing to go to war with ourselves to achieve the ends we wanted. The telegram began the war and the proclamation set us on the road to ending it. As an aside, I never knew that the E.P. ONLY freed slaves who were living in the states that had succeeded from the Union - AND applied only to those held by the Confederacy. So, apparently it was a shrug and a 'sorry' to the slaves living in areas recaptured by the Union, or the nearly 500,000 living in those border states who had not succeeded.
I am curious about the exclusion of the Gettysburg Address as an important document and thought perhaps it was excluded due to the inclusion of the Emancipation Proclamation. But both Martin Luther's 95 Theses were included, followed directly by the Edict of Worms. Those documents were separated by only four years, but concerned the same topic, so not sure why Lincoln's famous speech was not considered important enough?
Fun Fact: Apparently our Founding Fathers were not terribly responsible. The original copy of the Constitution had vanished at some point after its signing and no one knew where it was until 1846! Also, it has only been on display since 1952; I didn't realize it was such a short amount of time when I visited in 8th grade on a class trip.
A little dirty laundry gets aired here in the form of which states ratified the 19th Amendment and when - you keep it classy Mississippi, not ratifying until 1984. I am not surprised that many southern states were among the last to ratify it.
The 15 year old girl in me who will forever love Titanic could not help but be wistfully glad to see the inclusion of Titanic telegrams included as important documents that changed the world. Movie references aside, it really was a wake-up call to these shipping companies that safety measures needed to change and improve to avoid another tragedy on such a scale.
There were several documents relating to World War I and II, which should come as no surprise. The Treaty of Versailles is always troubling to me, as it basically assured that there would be another war - how could there not be? Germany was forced to take all the responsible for the Great War, only for the fact that they were the last ones standing when the war came to an end. It should shock no one that the Nazis were able to rise and grab power so swiftly; the treaty was crushing and the reparations were impossible.
When I think of a document, I think of something of the non-fiction, factual variety. This is why I struggle with the inclusion of books - manuscripts - in this text. However, I feel that Anne Frank's diary certainly deserves its place. The importance of this diary can not be overstated and if you do not believe me, try standing in the Annex and imagining living in this cramped space with seven other people, the majority of whom you struggle regularly to even get along with. It is one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had in my life and could not imagine spending two years in that place. Anne's diary gave a voice to the millions who had theirs cruelly and violently taken away. I did NOT like, however, that Miep Gies was simply referred to as the 'family friend' who later saved Anne's diary after the family had been taken away. Even with the focus being on the document itself, surely Miep deserves much more credit than that.
There were so many documents that I found interesting, I could keep writing for a while. I will finish this up with reference to a certain CIA document, dated August 6th, 2001, that stated very clearly an attack on the US by bin Laden was imminent. Unfortunately, this memo was handed to one of the most incompetent presidents in the history of our country, while he was staying at his ranch in Texas. You know, one of his 406 vacation days taken in his presidency, or some absurd number that the GOP conveniently likes to forget whenever they complain about Obama playing a round of golf. As a follow-up, the Iraq War Resolution was included but I couldn't even bother to read such garbage.
So, overall, this really is 3.5 stars. There were so many documents that belonged here, but at times their importance almost felt diminished simply because often only the bare facts were included. It is by no means a be-all, end-all for any of these documents and while I can recommend reading this one, I would also suggest further reading on any of the documents that interest you.
http://allthebookblognamesaretaken.bl...
https://www.facebook.com/AllTheBookBl...
I really love books like this, the '50 Objects..." or "12 Maps..." that 'changed the world' type books. This book is no exception, as it covered several documents that truly did change the world, for better or worse. While I disagree somewhat with some of the items included ('War and Peace' and '1984' - I do not consider books to be documents per se), the majority really do help the book live up to its name. How can you go wrong when writing about Magna Carta, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Apollo 11 Flight Plan, and Anne Frank's diary in one volume?
Turns out, you can. Or, at least not 'go wrong', but you can be lacking in detail and description at times. I understand this is not meant to be exhaustive, seeing as how it is quite slim to begin with, so I will get my complaints out of the way before I delve further in to discuss some of the specific documents addressed that I felt were among the most important. There is only one actual page of textual information devoted to each document, though that page often included a small picture of those who signed, witnessed, wrote, etc. the document. The opposite page was usually a picture of the document itself. Additionally, for a good portion of the beginning, nearly all of the documents were from Western Europe. Not all, but a good majority. Surely there were other important documents that could have been included from around the world and not just those few.
Now, to the documents I found most fascinating - it is also kind of embarrassing to admit that I did not know some of the facts I learned from this text. In my defense perhaps we were not taught those aspects in school? So many of these documents today exist now in the National Archives and I wish desperately to see them - namely the Fort Sumter Telegram announcing they were surrendering, and the Emancipation Proclamation. These were two hugely important documents that exist as a testament to the resolve of our young country - we were willing to go to war with ourselves to achieve the ends we wanted. The telegram began the war and the proclamation set us on the road to ending it. As an aside, I never knew that the E.P. ONLY freed slaves who were living in the states that had succeeded from the Union - AND applied only to those held by the Confederacy. So, apparently it was a shrug and a 'sorry' to the slaves living in areas recaptured by the Union, or the nearly 500,000 living in those border states who had not succeeded.
I am curious about the exclusion of the Gettysburg Address as an important document and thought perhaps it was excluded due to the inclusion of the Emancipation Proclamation. But both Martin Luther's 95 Theses were included, followed directly by the Edict of Worms. Those documents were separated by only four years, but concerned the same topic, so not sure why Lincoln's famous speech was not considered important enough?
Fun Fact: Apparently our Founding Fathers were not terribly responsible. The original copy of the Constitution had vanished at some point after its signing and no one knew where it was until 1846! Also, it has only been on display since 1952; I didn't realize it was such a short amount of time when I visited in 8th grade on a class trip.
A little dirty laundry gets aired here in the form of which states ratified the 19th Amendment and when - you keep it classy Mississippi, not ratifying until 1984. I am not surprised that many southern states were among the last to ratify it.
The 15 year old girl in me who will forever love Titanic could not help but be wistfully glad to see the inclusion of Titanic telegrams included as important documents that changed the world. Movie references aside, it really was a wake-up call to these shipping companies that safety measures needed to change and improve to avoid another tragedy on such a scale.
There were several documents relating to World War I and II, which should come as no surprise. The Treaty of Versailles is always troubling to me, as it basically assured that there would be another war - how could there not be? Germany was forced to take all the responsible for the Great War, only for the fact that they were the last ones standing when the war came to an end. It should shock no one that the Nazis were able to rise and grab power so swiftly; the treaty was crushing and the reparations were impossible.
When I think of a document, I think of something of the non-fiction, factual variety. This is why I struggle with the inclusion of books - manuscripts - in this text. However, I feel that Anne Frank's diary certainly deserves its place. The importance of this diary can not be overstated and if you do not believe me, try standing in the Annex and imagining living in this cramped space with seven other people, the majority of whom you struggle regularly to even get along with. It is one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had in my life and could not imagine spending two years in that place. Anne's diary gave a voice to the millions who had theirs cruelly and violently taken away. I did NOT like, however, that Miep Gies was simply referred to as the 'family friend' who later saved Anne's diary after the family had been taken away. Even with the focus being on the document itself, surely Miep deserves much more credit than that.
There were so many documents that I found interesting, I could keep writing for a while. I will finish this up with reference to a certain CIA document, dated August 6th, 2001, that stated very clearly an attack on the US by bin Laden was imminent. Unfortunately, this memo was handed to one of the most incompetent presidents in the history of our country, while he was staying at his ranch in Texas. You know, one of his 406 vacation days taken in his presidency, or some absurd number that the GOP conveniently likes to forget whenever they complain about Obama playing a round of golf. As a follow-up, the Iraq War Resolution was included but I couldn't even bother to read such garbage.
So, overall, this really is 3.5 stars. There were so many documents that belonged here, but at times their importance almost felt diminished simply because often only the bare facts were included. It is by no means a be-all, end-all for any of these documents and while I can recommend reading this one, I would also suggest further reading on any of the documents that interest you.
August 10, 2021
It's a coffee-table history book, and it looks nice...but it suffers from a number of issues: (1) it has a very...flexible (and occasionally bizarre) definition of a document that changed the world. Newton's "papers"? Really? The list of expenses from the Lewis & Clark expedition? Really? And then it gets into more contemporary times, and...well, I had enough by then; (2) some of the choices frankly don't come close to being what I would consider "world changing" documents...far too many to list, but far too many that made me yell "WHAT?" It's pretty, with a few neat choices, surrounded by oddity, irrelevance, and strangeness.
March 6, 2019
A very interesting set of documents and I learnt a lot about periods of history and history of the world that I have never studied.
As always with lists, it's worth thinking about what's been left out? The vast majority of the documents were written in either Europe or the USA, or, if about another part of the world, were written by Westerners. It seems to be mainly documents that physically exist, which is why the Ten Commandments didn't make it into the list.
Yes, it's biased. But nice bedtime reading and only a page or so on each document so very digestible.
As always with lists, it's worth thinking about what's been left out? The vast majority of the documents were written in either Europe or the USA, or, if about another part of the world, were written by Westerners. It seems to be mainly documents that physically exist, which is why the Ten Commandments didn't make it into the list.
Yes, it's biased. But nice bedtime reading and only a page or so on each document so very digestible.
October 4, 2018
Fascinating read of one groups idea naming 100 documents that changed the world. There were so many not chosen in the field of religion alone that the editorial stance is suspect. Religion does matter when it comes to world affairs. Well worth reading to be reminded of the things you knew and the things you never heard about before.
June 1, 2018
This isn't exactly the kind of book you sit down and read start-to-finish (though I did). It reads more like an encyclopedia. It's the kind of book that you put on your coffee table and browse at periodically. Great pictures, lots of interesting information.
July 7, 2020
Fascinating book. Gread starting point for jumping off into deeper dives, I had so many Wikipedia tabs open by the time I had finished!
Editing got worse towards the end, presumably they were pushed to meet a deadline, but that didn't detract from the overall experience.
Editing got worse towards the end, presumably they were pushed to meet a deadline, but that didn't detract from the overall experience.
January 17, 2018
This was a very fun and interesting "coffee-table" type book.
January 4, 2019
Interesting in parts, but too light to really grab the attention
Currently reading
July 5, 2019Thanks so much for?
June 2, 2020
A quick read - definitely had quite a few books on the list that I had not heard of before.
November 3, 2023
A convenient source of info for a quick review of history and interesting docs.
December 26, 2016
This book had a lot of potential, but I was disappointed in it. I stopped reading before I got to the modern era.
The print was too grey and too small for me to read very much at once, a trend I've noticed in some nonfiction books. How can one enjoy reading what one cannot read? (I may try to borrow this title on e-book sometime to enlarge the print. Or maybe not.)
The history behind some of these documents was interesting, but most of the ones I read did not explain why they were so world-changing.
And of course, like everyone who reads this book, I would have chosen some different books from those on this author's list. (Great discussion starter!)
I did appreciate the table of contents, which included approximate dates for each document. Very helpful!
The print was too grey and too small for me to read very much at once, a trend I've noticed in some nonfiction books. How can one enjoy reading what one cannot read? (I may try to borrow this title on e-book sometime to enlarge the print. Or maybe not.)
The history behind some of these documents was interesting, but most of the ones I read did not explain why they were so world-changing.
And of course, like everyone who reads this book, I would have chosen some different books from those on this author's list. (Great discussion starter!)
I did appreciate the table of contents, which included approximate dates for each document. Very helpful!
May 30, 2017
Christiansen provides brief, yet thorough back stories surrounding 100 rare and historically significant documents. Each two page spread includes a photo of the document, some related photos as well as the current location of the document. The writing is clear and engaging. I throughly enjoyed this literary look at history and learned a number of new and interesting facts.
February 26, 2016
Interesting topic, with short informative page for each document. I was familiar with most of them, but not all.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews