Stories that Changed the World

By Kevin McCann and Claire Watson

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

In his book Brief Answers to the Big Questions, Stephen Hawking said, “if you stacked the new books being published next to each other, at the present rate of production you would have to move at ninety miles an hour just to keep up with the end of the line.” In 2016, the most recent year data is available, there were 136 million books in the world. Add the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) estimate of 2.2 million new titles published each year; the rough total is 144.8 million. That’s a lot of books, which begs the question: what’s worth the read?

Some classic stories stand the test of time over and over again, changing lives and transforming the way we think and behave. These tales unfold in a tidal wave of words, shaped to influence perception, opinion, and behavior at the most opportune times. Their effect on society is still felt today.

The must-read list

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 forced free states to turn over escaped slaves, driving abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. One of the first graphic stories exposing slavery’s grueling conditions, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, launched a massive shift in views toward slavery and was arguably the groundwork for the Civil War. When Abraham Lincoln met the author, he said, “So this is the little lady who started this Great War.”

How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York (1890)

Jacob Riis, an immigrant from Denmark, moved to the New York City slums in 1870 and later became a police reporter. He took up photography as a pastime because it helped detail his reports. In 1888, he documented life in the New York City slums and published it as a novel in 1890. The novel sparked “muckraking,” a journalistic movement that exposed corruption and political machines by documenting life that the upper and middle class were not accustomed to.

The Jungle (1906)

A product of the “muckraker” movement, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle follows Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant working in a meatpacking plant in Chicago. Sinclair intended to use the meatpacking industry to advance the Socialist Party because readers were concerned about working conditions. The public pressured the federal government for intervention. The Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act were passed. In 1906, the Bureau of Chemistry, later renamed the Food and Drug Administration, was created. The Jungle’s lasting effect led to many social and cultural reforms, including the invention of the weekend, child labor laws, and maximum hours worked per week.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (1947)

When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Anne Frank and her family moved to the Netherlands to escape persecution and death. In 1942, Frank and her family hid in a secret apartment behind her father’s business in German-occupied Amsterdam. Writing her diary to an imaginary friend called Kitty, she wrote about her life in hiding. The Franks were sent to concentration camps in 1944. Only her father survived. Anne Frank’s diary of her family’s time in hiding has been translated into almost 70 languages and is one of the most widely read accounts of the Holocaust.

1984: (1948)

Penned in 1948, George Orwell’s 1984 claims its space as one of the most significant novels of the 20th century. 1984 chronicles the life of Winston Smith, a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in Oceania that watches his every move and controls everything. Winston is fixated on an influential Party member, O’Brien, who he believes is a secret member of a group working to overthrow the Party. This dystopian novel follows the escapades of Smith in a society where government control and manipulation reigns supreme.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

Harper Lee’s editors warned her that To Kill a Mockingbird might not sell. She didn’t listen, and this classic based in 1936 Alabama is cherished in many households. In the same vein as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it brought the legal side of segregation to light and was taught in schools as early as 1963. It was published at the right time for a nation that needed to grasp a growing Civil Rights movement and act against the injustice of racism and segregation.

I am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban

Malala Yousafzai was 10 years old when the Taliban moved into the peaceful Swat Valley in Pakistan. Women weren’t allowed in the market, and girls couldn’t go to school. Taught to stand up for what she believed in, Malala fought for her right to an education. Her resistance earned her a bullet in the head. Her miraculous recovery opened a journey from a remote village in northern Pakistan to the United Nations. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.