nsiadi: Soccer is quite distinct from literature
Luck plays heightened part in soccer
That Chelsea won the CL doesnt necessarily mean that Bayern didnt outclass them
No one perfects the art of scoring penalties. World`s great footballers miss penalties
Messi, Ronaldo, Rooney nd even Drogba missed. Literary art is different

I agree with you. But who is the Europe Champions this season? Chelsea or Bayern? Please be objective!

Objective?-Name those East Africans you have in mind. Have them recommended!
Objective?-Who stands a better chance to know Africa`s footballer of the year? Is it acclaimed BBC or likes of Isa Hayotu with itching palms?
Most of us know the windy routes which monies straighten. Still in doubt?
Hope we are not deviating---y are they talking of goal line technologies? To eliminate crooked refereeing manipulations!

nsiadi: Objective?-Name those East Africans you have in mind. Have them recommended!
Objective?-Who stands a better chance to know Africa`s footballer of the year? Is it acclaimed BBC or likes of Isa Hayotu with itching palms?
Most of us know the windy routes which monies straighten. Still in doubt?

I can't but laugh. BBC is an authority on Africa football just like your Wikipedia faceless experts are authorities on literature!

It's now obvious you know next to nothing (not meant to be derogatory) about literature or football. BBC know more about football than CAF?
Windy routes indeed.

Continue that path. Achebe is the best thing that happens to the world's literature, he is no match, second to none, the best that con not be match. Are you happy now?

Don't laugh, he is far from being the best!

I pray that Po families will soon visit their holy land out of rotten blown tire body[img]http://www.50centloseweight.com[/img]

U avoid reacting to key issues. U react to selectives
Others will like to know your opinion on Isa Hayatu & Adamu who served on FIFA committee on our behalf
Do u know that that one of the new rules of the CAF committee is "No one wins if he isnt physically present @ d ceremony" Doubt it?
These are the people who dish out what you want to believe. Try to distinguish bw Politics & realities
The group that selected Achebe that we are discussing now dont have ilks of Isa Hayotu & Adamu. Do they? Be direct

nsiadi: U avoid reacting to key issues. U react to selectives
Others will like to know your opinion on Isa Hayatu & Adamu who served on FIFA committee on our behalf
Do u know that that one of the new rules of the CAF committee is "No one wins if he isnt physically present @ d ceremony" Doubt it?
These are the people who dish out what you want to believe. Try to distinguish bw Politics & realities
The group that selected Achebe that we are discussing now dont have ilks of Isa Hayotu & Adamu. Do they? Be direct

I want to be your friend. You have a great sense of humor and really make me laugh. Hayotu and Adama do not, exclusively, dictate the winner.
coaches all over Africa contribute to the voting and selection process. So Hayotu having a itching palm will not bring dirt to the process.

Now, we know that CAF at least has legitimacy in conducting such process and awarding titles to the concerned players. On what authority is the so called faceless Wikipedia experts based their assessment and judgement? How many books did they assess, examined? How credible was the voting process?

Tell me more about this this saintly group without iota of blemish. The faultless all knowing literary minds! Please be direct. Who are they?

Another prominient son of igbo....Igbo kwenu!!!! Kwenu!!!!Kwezuenu!!!yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.Let our enemy (Yoruba Yoruba) live long and see what we shall be in future..

@ De Moore
Tx 4 the pep. Its necessary, @times, to take some people to the cleaners
We must be allowed to celebrate our own especially when they are jewels
We will all be better off if we stop under rating others. You never know who has the capacity to hold on

bayooooooo:

Re read the posts above. You started the tribal stuff first before I responded in kind. See below:

Just because okocha had been a very prolific striker and was the best footballer in one year that everyone kept referring to that year as the africa finest moment in football would not make Okocha the best more so that he did not even have any continental awards to his name. That also does not take anything away from Okocha's greatness as well. That's the heart of the matter.

Another indirect dissing of a prolific Igbo son.

bayooooooo:

Snobbery? Guy leave matter and let's move on. Achebe is great, no doubt, but certainly not the africa's greatest.
Winning small awards here and there does not compare to the main thing. Okocha won BBC's African Footballer of the Year but we all know who won the main prize. Same is applicable to Nobel Prize. Deifying Achebe and glorifying Wikipedia lists will not bring Achebe the much desired Prize. That does not add anything to what's already known.

You need to grow up and assess issue objectively without bias. If Nobel prize will be given to an African tomorrow, it's most likely not going to be Achebe. Why? There are several better authors in East Africa who on comparative basis are more deserving than this overrated, the so called finest, so called greatest, so called best known, so called genius. So it's not a Yoruba vs Igbo thing as some have erroneously labelled it. I am not a tribalist for all who cares to listen. my analysis or belief is purely from the point of what I have read, Africa wide, and the literary perceptions beyond Africa.

If we ask some of you to explain what you mean by Achebe being the Africa best, you, no doubt, have no fact or any shred of evidence to substantiate such a position. Why? No one, except people within your circle, would believe the so called best has not be able to win the best award why four other personalities have won such? No body in Europe, Asia, America, S America would believe your stories of a book being translated to a thousand languages. So try and be objective.

You have avoided this question time and again, "Who then is the Greatest?" Obviously, you have no better candidate but you cannot refrain from using Pull-Down-Syndrome to discredit the Greatest.

Kindly provide us names of your so called "several better authors in East Africa" since you probably keep tabs on them and their works. Another classic case of discrediting Prof.Achebe's reputation and bad belle

And I will appreciate you stop limiting Prof. Achebe's work to Africa's best. That list up there is not an African List. It's a world rating. and this is not the 1st time Prof is topping the list. Prof Achebe had gone global long before you knew how to read or write. Eat that

nsiadi: @ De Moore
Tx 4 the pep. Its necessary, @times, to take some people to the cleaners
We must be allowed to celebrate our own especially when they are jewels
We will all be better off if we stop under rating others. You never know who has the capacity to hold on

Well said.

opokonwa:

Another indirect dissing of a prolific Igbo son.

What you do you another indirect dissing? Is he the best, second to none and the best thing that happened to Africa's football? I dey laugh

bayooooooo:

What you do you another indirect dissing? Is he the best, second to none and the best thing that happened to Africa's football? I dey laugh

You had a plethora of Yoruba footballers to use for your usual sarcastic comparison but you again chose Okocha.
So true about your blood.
Is it that your tribe is bereft of a great footballer to use? Or you intended to discredit another Igbo son??
Your tendencies are quite obvious

I believe the list was compiled by superscholar! who are they?

The last official compilation of the most influential books were done in 1998 and the next one would be done later this year.

# Author or source Title Date Public domain?
1 Chinese classic texts I Ching 11th century BCE yes
2 Jewish scripture Hebrew Bible 8th–4th century BCE yes
3 Homer Iliad and Odyssey 8th – early 7th century BCE yes
4 Hindu scripture Upanishads 9th century BC yes
5 Lao Tsu Tao Te Ching 4th century BCE yes
6 Zoroastrian scripture Avesta 1st millennium BC – 3rd century CE yes
7 Confucius Analects 5th–4th century BCE yes
8 Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War 5th century BCE yes
9 Hippocrates Works 400 BC yes
10 Aristotle Works 4th century BCE yes
11 Herodotus Histories 5th century BCE yes
12 Plato The Republic 380 BCE yes
13 Euclid Elements 280 BCE yes
14 Theravada Buddhist scripture Dhammapada (Path of the Dharma) 252 BCE yes
15 Virgil Aeneid 19 BCE yes
16 Lucretius De Rerum Natura 55 BCE yes
17 Philo of Alexandria Allegorical Expositions of the Holy Laws 1st century CE yes
18 Christian scripture New Testament ca. 50–100 CE yes
19 Plutarch Parallel Lives 120 CE yes
20 Cornelius Tacitus Annals, From the Death of the Divine Augustus 120 CE yes
21 Valentinus Gospel of Truth (Gnostic text) 2nd century yes
22 Marcus Aurelius Meditations 167 yes
23 Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism 150–210 CE yes
24 Plotinus Enneads 3rd century yes
25 Augustine of Hippo Confessions 400 CE yes
26 Muslim scripture Quran 7th century yes
27 Moses Maimonides Guide for the Perplexed 1190 yes
28 Text of Judaic mysticism Kabbalah 12th century yes
29 Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae 1266–1273 yes
30 Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy 1321 yes
31 Desiderius Erasmus In Praise of Folly 1509 yes
32 Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince 1532 yes
33 Martin Luther On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church 1520 yes
34 François Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel 1532 and 1534 yes
35 John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion 1536 yes
36 Nicolaus Copernicus On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 1543 yes
37 Michel de Montaigne Essays 1580 yes
38 Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote 1605 and 1615 yes
39 Johannes Kepler Harmony of the Worlds 1619 yes
40 Francis Bacon Novum Organum 1620 yes
41 William Shakespeare First Folio 1623 yes
42 Galileo Galilei Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems 1632 yes
43 René Descartes Discourse on Method 1637 yes
44 Thomas Hobbes Leviathan 1651 yes
45 Gottfried Leibniz Works 1663–1716 yes
46 Blaise Pascal Pensées 1670 yes
47 Baruch de Spinoza Ethics 1677 yes
48 John Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress 1678–1684 yes
49 Isaac Newton Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy 1687 yes
50 John Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1689 yes
51 George Berkeley Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge 1710, revised 1734 yes
52 Giambattista Vico The New Science 1725, revised 1744 yes
53 David Hume A Treatise of Human Nature 1739–1740 yes
54 Denis Diderot (ed.) Encyclopédie 1751–1772 yes
55 Samuel Johnson A Dictionary of the English Language 1755 yes
56 Voltaire Candide 1759 yes
57 Thomas Paine Common Sense 1776 yes
58 Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations 1776 yes
59 Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1776–1787 yes
60 Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason 1781, revised 1787 yes
61 Jean-Jacques Rousseau Confessions 1781 yes
62 Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France 1790 yes
63 Mary Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1792 yes
64 William Godwin An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice 1793 yes
65 Thomas Robert Malthus An Essay on the Principle of Population 1798, revised 1803 yes
66 George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit 1807 yes
67 Arthur Schopenhauer The World as Will and Idea 1819 yes
68 Auguste Comte The Course in Positive Philosophy 1830–1842 yes
69 Carl von Clausewitz On War 1832 yes
70 Søren Kierkegaard Either/Or 1843 yes
71 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Communist Manifesto 1848 yes
72 Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience 1849 yes
73 Charles Darwin The Origin of Species 1859 yes
74 John Stuart Mill On Liberty 1859 yes
75 Herbert Spencer First Principles 1862 yes
76 Gregor Mendel Experiments on Plant Hybridization 1866 yes
77 Leo Tolstoy War and Peace 1868–1869 yes
78 James Clerk Maxwell Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism 1873 yes
79 Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra 1883–1885 yes
80 Sigmund Freud The Interpretation of Dreams 1900 yes
81 William James Pragmatism 1908 yes
82 Albert Einstein Relativity 1916 yes
83 Vilfredo Pareto The Mind and Society 1916 yes
84 Carl Jung Psychological Types 1921
85 Martin Buber I and Thou 1923
86 Franz Kafka The Trial 1925 yes
87 Karl Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery 1934
88 John Maynard Keynes General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money 1936 yes
89 Jean-Paul Sartre Being and Nothingness 1943
90 Friedrich von Hayek The Road to Serfdom 1944
91 Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex 1948
92 Norbert Wiener Cybernetics 1948, revised 1961
93 George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four 1949
94 George Gurdjieff Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson 1950
95 Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations 1953
96 Noam Chomsky Syntactic Structures 1957
97 Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 1962, revised 1970
98 Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique 1963
99 Mao Zedong
(attributed) Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (Little Red Book) 1966
100 B. F. Skinner Beyond Freedom and Dignity 1971



But definitely Things Fall Apart is in the top 100 best books of all time but not in the top 100 influential books

bestview: Things Fall Apart, the classic novel by Africa’s foremost novelist Chinua Achebe, has been named one of the “fifty most influential books of the last 50 years.”



The selection was made by a group called “SuperScholar.” Achebe’s first novel, published in 1958 and translated into more than sixty languages, is one of several novels by other world acclaimed writers. Other novels on the list include Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.



Achebe, who is the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in Providence, RI, is the author of five novels, several volumes of poetry as well as essay collections. His latest book, There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra, will be published in September, 2012.





50 Most Influential Books of the Last 50 (or so) Years



In compiling the books on this list, the editors at SuperScholar have tried to provide a window into the culture of the last 50 years. Ideally, if you read every book on this list, you will know how we got to where we are today. Not all the books on this list are “great.” The criterion for inclusion was not greatness but INFLUENCE. All the books on this list have been enormously influential.

The books we chose required some hard choices. Because influence tends to be measured in years rather than months, it’s much easier to put older books (published in the 60s and 70s) on such a list than more recent books (published in the last decade). Older books have had more time to prove themselves. Selecting the more recent books required more guesswork, betting on which would prove influential in the long run.

We also tried to keep a balance between books that everyone buys and hardly anyone reads versus books that, though not widely bought and read, are deeply transformative. The Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa never sold as many records as some of the “one-hit wonders,” but their music has transformed the industry. Influence and popularity sometimes don’t go together. We’ve tried to reflect this in our list.

1. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958), as the most widely read book in contemporary African literature, focuses on the clash of colonialism, Christianity, and native African culture.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

2. Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) reinvented the science fiction genre, making it at once sociologically incisive as well as funny.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

3. Robert Atkins’ Dr Atkins’s New Diet Revolution (1992, last edition 2002) launched the low-carbohydrate diet revolution, variants of which continue to be seen in numerous other diet programs.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

4. Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion (2006), drawing on his background as an evolutionary theorist to elevate science at the expense of religion, propelled the neo-atheist movement.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

5. Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind (1987) set the tone for the questioning of political correctness and the reassertion of a “canon” of Western civilization.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

6. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003), an entertaining thriller, has been enormously influential in getting people to think that Jesus is not who Christians say he is and that Christianity is all a conspiracy.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]



7. Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970) transformed the way we view native Americans as they lost their land, lives, and dignity to expanding white social and military pressures.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

8. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) more than any other book helped launch the environmental movement.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

9. Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures (1957), laying out his ideas of transformational grammar, revolutionized the field of linguistics and at the same time dethroned behaviorism in psychology.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

10. Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Successful People (1989) set the standard for books on leadership and effectiveness in business.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

11. Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box (1996), though roundly rejected by the scientific community, epitomizes the challenge of so-called intelligent design to evolutionary theory and has spawned an enormous literature, both pro and con.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]



12. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997), in employing evolutionary determinism as a lens for understanding human history, reignited grand history making in the spirit Spengler and Toynbee.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

13. Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1980) examines, in the context of a mystery at a medieval monastery, the key themes of premodernity, modernity and postmodernity.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

14. Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1962) provides a particularly effective answer to totalitarian attempts to crush the human spirit, showing how humanity can overcome horror and futility through finding meaning and purpose.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

15. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963), in giving expression to the discontent women felt in being confined to the role of homemaker, helped galvanize the women’s movement.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

16. Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom (1962) argued that capitalism constitutes a necessary condition for political liberties and thus paved the way for the conservative economics of the Reagan years.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

17. Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence (1995) showed clearly how skills in dealing with and reading emotions can be even more important than the cognitive skills that are usually cited as the official reason for career advancement.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]



18. Jane Goodall’s In the Shadow of Man (1971), in relating her experiences with chimpanzees in the wild, underscored the deep connection between humans and the rest of the animal world.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

19. John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (1992), in highlighting and elevating the differences between men and women in their relationships, challenged the contention that gender differences are socially constructed.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

20. Alex Haley’s Roots (1976), by personalizing the tragic history of American slavery through the story of Kunta Kinte, provided a poignant challenge to racism in America.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

21. Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time (1988, updated and expanded 1998), by one of the age’s great physicists, attempts to answer the big questions of existence, not least how the universe got here.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

22. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961) etched into public consciousness a deep skepticism of bureaucracies, which in the book are portrayed as self-serving and soul-destroying.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

23. Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962, last edition 1978) changed our view of science from a fully rational enterprise to one fraught with bias and irrational elements.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]



24. Harold Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981) transformed people’s view of God, exonerating God of evil by making him less than all-powerful.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

25. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) served as prelude to the civil rights advances of the 1960s by portraying race relations from a fresh vantage—the vantage of an innocent child untainted by surrounding racism and bigotry.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

26. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), as an example magical realism, epitomizes the renaissance in Latin American literature.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

27. Alasdair McIntyre’s After Virtue (1981, last edition 2007) is one of the 20th century’s most important works of moral philosophy, critiquing the rationalism and irrationalism that pervade modern moral discourse.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

28. Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved (1987) provides a profound and moving reflection on the impact of American slavery.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

29. Abdul Rahman Munif’s Cities of Salt (1984-89) is a quintet of novels in Arabic focusing on the psychological, sociological, and economic impact on the Middle East of oil.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]



30. Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed> (1965), attacking car industry’s lax safety standards, not only improved the safety of cars but also mainstreamed consumer protection (we take such protections for granted now).

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

31. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks’ The 9/11 Commission Report (2004), though not the final statement on the 9/11 disaster, encapsulated the broader threat of terrorism in the new millennium.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

32. Roger Penrose’s The Emperor’s New Mind (1988) provides a sweeping view of 20thcentury’s scientific advances while at the same time challenging the reductionism prevalent among many scientists.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

33. Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (1957) has become a key inspiration for conservative economics in challenging entitlements and promoting unimpeded markets.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

34. John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971, last edition 1999) is the most significant effort to date to resolve the problem of distributive justice and has formed the backdrop for public policy debates.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

35. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series (seven volumes, 1997-2007), loved by children, panned by many literary critics, has nonetheless set the standard for contemporary children’s literature.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

36. Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988), which led Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a death edict (fatwa) against Rushdie, underscored the clash between Islamic fundamentalism and Western civilization.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]



37. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos (1980), based on his wildly popular PBS series by the same name, inspired widespread interest in science while promoting the idea that nothing beyond the cosmos exists.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

38. Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation (2001) details the massive impact that the U.S. fast food industry has had on people’s diets not just in the U.S. but also across the globe.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

39. Amartya Sen’s Resources, Values and Development (1984, last edition 1997) develops an approach to economics that, instead of focusing on utility maximization, attempts to alleviate human suffering by redressing the poverty that results from economic mismanagement.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

40. B. F. Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) attacked free will and moral autonomy in an effort to justify the use of scientific (behavioral) methods in improving society.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

41. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago (in three volumes, 1974-78) relentlessly exposed the totalitarian oppression of the former Soviet Union and, more than any other book, was responsible for its government’s subsequent dissolution.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

42. Hernando de Soto’s The Mystery of Capitalism (2000) argues that the absence of legal infrastructure, especially as it relates to property, is the key reason that capitalism fails when it does fail.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

43. Benjamin Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946, last edition 2004) sold 50 million copies and revolutionized how Americans raise their children.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]



44. Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan (2007, last edition 2010) provides the most trenchant critique to date of the financial and monetary backdrop to the current economic crisis.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

45. Mao Tse-tung’s The Little Red Book, aka Quotations From Chairman Mao (1966) was required reading throughout China and epitomized his political and social philosophy.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

46. Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life (2002), though addressed to the American evangelical culture, has crossed boundaries and even led to Warren giving the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

47. James D. Watson’s The Double Helix (1969), in presenting a personal account of his discovery, with Francis Crick, of the structure of DNA, not only recounted one of the 20thcentury’s greatest scientific discoveries but also showed how science, as a human enterprise, really works.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

48. E. O. Wilson’s Sociobiology (1975) challenged the idea that cultural evolution can be decoupled from biological evolution, thus engendering the fields of evolutionary psychology and evolutionary ethics.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

49. Malcolm X’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), written posthumously by Alex Haley from interviews, portrays a complex activist for human rights at a complex time in American history.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]

50. Muhammad Yunus’ Banker to the Poor (1999, last edition 2007) lays out how “micro-lending” made it possible to provide credit to the poor, thereby offering a viable way to significantly diminish world poverty.

[Amazon Link] – [Wikipedia Link]


http://saharareporters.com/news-page/achebe%E2%80%99s-things-fall-apart-named-one-50-most-influential-books-last-50-years

thank you sir

Thank you guys for posting the above.

Some people cannot contain their neighbors achievement.
It is an unsavory and bitter reality to them. Rather than celebrating with their neighbor, it's to line up several veiled and disgusting arguments only intended to tarnish someone else's achievement.

Your next door neighbor may not appreciate your achievement but the whole world continues to blow Prof. Achebe'a accomplishment.

I can imagine how bemused and embarrassed the Prof will be to see his name pop up every now and then in accolade after accolade after accolade.......

opokonwa:

You have avoided this question time and again, "Who then is the Greatest?" Obviously, you have no better candidate but you cannot refrain from using Pull-Down-Syndrome to discredit the Greatest.

Kindly provide us names of your so called "several better authors in East Africa" since you probably keep tabs on them and their works. Another classic case of discrediting Prof.Achebe's reputation and bad belle

And I will appreciate you stop limiting Prof. Achebe's work to Africa's best. That list up there is not an African List. It's a world rating. and this is not the 1st time Prof is topping the list. Prof Achebe had gone global long before you knew how to read or write. Eat that

To the first part in bold, no be only the greatest na him be the highest. Pull Down Syndrome indeed. Since all your arguments have been severely dealt a mortal blow, it's not surprising your latest route. Read about these four writers and tell me which among them is not better than Achebe:

1. Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize 1986.
2. Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize 1988
3. Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize 1991.
4. John Maxwell Coetzee Nobel Prize 2003.

While you are at that, watch out for these two guys in the near future. They stand a better chance: Assia Djebar and Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Achebe tops the world lists compile by faceless experts on Wikipedia. Is that what you are celebrating? Why not called him the best thing that ever happened to literature on earth? It hurts me badly to say this but that's the truth: he is even far from the Africa's best so he stands no chance of shooting for the world greatest.

opokonwa:

You had a plethora of Yoruba footballers to use for your usual sarcastic comparison but you again chose Okocha.
So true about your blood.
Is it that your tribe is bereft of a great footballer to use? Or you intended to discredit another Igbo son??
Your tendencies are quite obvious

Sorry if that offends you but again Okocha fits the analogy more than any other Nigerian player. Well talented, often exaggerated and failed to win the much coveted African Footballer of the Year. So sad.

bayooooooo:

To the first part in bold, no be only the greatest na him be the highest. Pull Down Syndrome indeed. Since all your arguments have been severely dealt a mortal blow, it's not surprising your latest route. Read about these four writers and tell me which among them is not better than Achebe:

1. Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize 1986.
2. Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize 1988
3. Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Prize 1991.
4. John Maxwell Coetzee Nobel Prize 2003.

While you are at that, watch out for these two guys in the near future. They stand a better chance: Assia Djebar and Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Achebe tops the world lists compile by faceless experts on Wikipedia. Is that what you are celebrating? Why not called him the best thing that ever happened to literature on earth? It hurts me badly to say this but that's the truth: he is even far from the Africa's best so he stands no chance of shooting for the world greatest.

It remains obvious that the Nobel Prize is your Holy Grail. And until it is awarded to Prof.Achebe, he is not the best ^{laughing in Arabic}

Kindly answer my question:
How often are their works referred to several years after they won the Prize

While you are scratching your head to answer me, please back it up with references as Achebe's references litter this thread.

Achebe's work in Things Fall Apart keep receiving accolades several years after it is written. So sad

Prof. Achebe's non-stop recognition and chart-topping antics negates all your pull-down-arguments to relegate him to obscurity.

Some people are institutions themselves, and the substance of their work challenges the very essence of the Nobel Prize.

Prof. Achebe fits this bill. So sad

It blows my mind. [img]http://www.50centloseweight.com[/img]

opokonwa:

It remains obvious that the Nobel Prize is your Holy Grail. And until it is awarded to Prof.Achebe, he is not the best ^{laughing in Arabic}

Kindly answer my question:
How often are their works referred to several years after they won the Prize

While you are scratching your head to answer me, please back it up with references as Achebe's references litter this thread.

Okooocha na you dey reign oooo, okoooocha, na you dey reign oooo, okoooocha
I love you pass maradona, Okooocha
I love you pass Bebeto, Okooocha
I love you pass my mother, Okooocha

Na so wey sing but the guy failed to win the main thing!!!

If you must know, the highest award you can win in literature is Nobel prize, after that there is nothing to proof to the world again. You can't ask George Weah or Messi to proof their worth as a world best footballer having won the World Footballer of the Year. It does not make sense.

It's even an insult to start giving all these Wikipedia awards organised by the faceless so called super scholars, damned whoever gave them that appellation, to the acknowledged, world's accepted best.

bayooooooo:

Okooocha na you dey reign oooo, okoooocha, na you dey reign oooo, okoooocha
I love you pass maradona, Okooocha
I love you pass Bebeto, Okooocha
I love you pass my mother, Okooocha

Na so wey sing but the guy failed to win the main thing!!!

If you must know, the highest award you can win in literature is Nobel prize, after that there is nothing to proof to the world again. You can't ask George Weah or Messi to proof their worth as a world best footballer having won the World Footballer of the Year. It does not make sense.

It's even an insult to start giving all these Wikipedia awards organised by the faceless so called super scholars, damned whoever gave them that appellation, to the acknowledged, world's accepted best.

Sincerely, I am enjoying you

opokonwa:

Sincerely, I am enjoying you

Don't mind me, I can be funny sometimes.

opokonwa:

Sincerely, I am enjoying you

To cut a long story short, irrespective of what I have written above, I personally believe Achebe is one of the Africa's best writers. He was the one that advertised African literature to the world and had consistently challenged the west of her rabid, sordid dehumanizing racism towards Africa.

I believed Achebe's troubles in winning Nobel prize might not be unconnected with his criticism of Conrad which was not well received in the West. Nobel Prize is not an automatic thing that once nominated, it becomes confirmed. Just like the CAF, or FIFA stuff, there is voting after nomination and that like other human activity, is subjected to politics of the day. Since he is not in a position to lobby for such vote, the result is of course obvious to us.

This is not in any way to discredit those who have won the award. They are hardworking, brilliant and excellent minds. But to some people, the guy with the Dean's award, the faculty prize or the first class student may in all honesty not be the best student in the class. But in official circle, award, rank is use for recognition and that is very essence of campaign by numerous people that Achebe should be given the honor he rightly deserved. But until that's done, his deification as Africa's best can't not be substantiated and will go against available evidence.

I tink he finally collected dat 50cent's bribe 2 sell his rights of d name ''things fall apart".... 50cent finally released d movies....

I know some people will like 2 keep vigil so as to deflect more awards coming to Achebe. They can stay awake but won't accomplish their dream

This is why our country can't (& maybe NEVER) grow because of our mind set here.
The book is great & it has received world recognition... DEAL WITH IT!!!!!
We should be happy a Nigerian book was among just as we were happy when a Nigerian won a Nobel prize.
Arguing that Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa (with other tribes) is better WON'T & WILL NOT take us anywhere.
Let's appreciate our people please.

Achebe is a good writer but i believe cyprian ekwensi is seriously underrated- not sure why.

most people here have nt read d book i will advise u 2 go and read it very interesting