The book everyone wishes they’d written

Times Higher Education today launched a new series where leading scholars explain which books they believe are definitive in their field. Writers were asked to choose a key text that “defined their subject, set their personal academic agendas or even changed their lives.”

This week’s books are from disciplines ranging from anthropology and architecture to social policy and international relations. It is anticipated that in time the weekly series will cover most of the academic landscape.

CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON by Immanuel Kant
Recommended and reviewed by Simon Blackburn, professor of philosophy, University of Cambridge.
Available in UL Library at 121/KAN

THE SECOND SEX by Simone de Beauvoir
Recommended and reviewed by Mary Evans, visiting fellow, Gender Institute, London School of Economics.
Available in UL Library at 305.42

A PHENOMENOLOGY OF LANDSCAPE: PLACES, PATHS AND MONUMENTS by Christopher Tilley
Recommended and reviewed by Timothy Darvill, professor of archaeology and director of the Centre for Archaeology, Anthropology and Heritage, Bournemouth University.
Available in UL Library at 936.29/TIL

THE GREEKS AND THE IRRATIONAL by E. R. Dodds
Recommended and reviewed by Mary Beard, professor of Classics, Newnham College, Cambridge.
Available through UL Library as an e-book

ANTHROPOLOGIE ECONOMIQUE DES GOURO DE COTE D'IVOIRE by Claude Meillassoux
Recommended and reviewed by Jeremy Keenan, professorial research associate, department of social anthropology and sociology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Available as an inter-library loan

ON WAR by Carl von Clausewitz
Recommended and reviewed by Alex Danchev, professor of international relations, University of Nottingham. His latest book is On Art and War and Terror (2009).
Available in UL Library at 355

THE USES OF LITERACY by Richard Hoggart
Recommended and reviewed by Fred Inglis, emeritus professor of cultural studies, University of Sheffield.
Available in UL Library at 302.22440941/HOG

THE NAZI SEIZURE OF POWER: THE EXPERIENCE OF A SINGLE GERMAN TOWN 1922-1945 by William Sheridan Allen
Recommended and reviewed by Richard Evans, Regius professor of modern history, University of Cambridge.
Available in UL Library at Store 943.085/ALL

LEVIATHAN by Thomas Hobbes
Recommended and reviewed by Alan Ryan, warden of New College, Oxford.
Available in UL Library at 320.1

GENDER TROUBLE by Judith Butler
Recommended and reviewed by Lynne Segal, professor of psychology and gender studies, Birkbeck, University of London.
Available in UL Library at 305.3/BUT

THE EYES OF THE SKIN: ARCHITECTURE AND THE SENSES by Juhani Pallasmaa
Recommended and reviewed by Flora Samuel, reader in architecture, University of Bath.
Available in UL Library at 720.1

ON RELIGION: SPEECHES TO ITS CULTURED DESPISERS by Friedrich Schleiermacher
Recommended and reviewed by Keith Ward, Regius professor of divinity emeritus, University of Oxford.
Available at Mary Immaculate Library at 200/SCH

THE PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE by Erving Goffman
Recommended and reviewed by Anthony Giddens, Labour peer in the House of Lords.
Available in UL Library at 302

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: THE BORDERS OF VISION by Jonathan Wordsworth
Recommended and reviewed by Duncan Wu, professor in the English department, Georgetown University.
Available as an inter-library loan

OF GRAMMATOLOGY by Jacques Derrida, translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Recommended and reviewed by Derek Attridge, professor of English at the University of York.
Available in UL Library at 401

THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES VOLUME VII: THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST AND MONEY by John Maynard Keynes
Recommended and reviewed by Michelle Baddeley, fellow, college lecturer and director of studies in economics, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Available in UL Library at 330.156

COURS DE LINGUISTIQUE GENERALE by Ferdinand de Saussure
Recommended and reviewed by Roy Harris, emeritus professor of general linguistics, University of Oxford.
Available in UL Library at 410

ORIENTALISM by Edward Said
Recommended and reviewed by Claire Chambers is senior lecturer in postcolonial literature, Leeds Metropolitan University.
Available in UL Library at 950.07

Click here for the full Times Higher Education article, including reviews of the books listed.