Status Updates From Books That Changed History

In “On Liberty” Mill defended individuality against the strictures of society. He also promoted diversity and nonconformity, claiming that it was the challenges presented to society… that prevented it from stagnating. Crucially, he argued for freedom of speech and emphasized that the expression of any individual should be free from state control.

Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"... was passionate and populist in tone, and his words united the people with their political leaders. Common Sense was the most widely read publication of the American Revolution—around 500,000 copies of the pamphlet are thought to have been sold at the time.

Rejecting realism and naturalism, Mallarmé used dreams and symbols to explain the enduring mysteries of human existence, giving rise to a new sense of what poetry might mean. "Symbolism," meant a new poetic language in which the sounds of spoken words played as key a role as their meanings; their exact placement around the page encouraged nonlinear reading, allowed ambiguity and infinite series of interpretations.

"Marx believed that as the proletariat became increasingly class conscious it would rise up, sweeping away its capitalist oppressors" and boy did he miss the mark on that one

Uncle Tom's Cabin can be seen as maudlin, and is often cloyingly sentimental. It has also been attacked for being patronizing, and almost racist, by a number of modern scholars. Yet its success in championing the plight of slaves in the US and helping to bring an end to slavery cannot be questioned... a social conscience outraged that slavery could exist at all in a country that had been conceived in liberty.

Beecher Stowe was a passionate abolitionist, and the theme throughout Uncle Tom's Cabin is the immorality of slavery—an issue that became the great fault line of 19th-century America. It sold 300,000 copies in the US and one million in the UK in its first year. In the 19th century, only the Bible sold in greater numbers.

The publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin unleashed a storm of criticism in the South. Beecher Stowe was attacked not only for never having visited a plantation, but also for fundamentally misunderstanding what many in the South saw as the "essentially benign nature of slavery": that blacks were like children, requiring a firm but kindly hand to guide them.

A champion of the poor, Dickens created armies of extraordinary characters, and the vast tableaux that emerged played a crucial part in society's awakening social conscience. As a novelist and social commentator, Dickens became one of the age's most famous figures.

dark artwork mirrors the hidden malevolence of "The Tyger," in this, perhaps the best loved, poem from Songs of Experience. In the poem, Blake poses a series of questions that marvel at the subject's majesty. Few readers would have seen a real tiger but knew that it symbolized power and strength. The clue to the poet's intention comes in the last lines. Could a God who made the meek lamb also create the fierce tiger?

...his vision included free education, old-age pensions, and public works for the unemployed, all funded by a scaled income tax that would favor the poor.

Paine posited the then radical view that governments have a responsibility to protect the natural and civil rights of their citizens, ensuring their freedom, security, and equal opportunity. And, that crucially, should a government fail to safeguard those rights, then the people would be justified in overthrowing it.

Adam Smith argued that free markets weeded out the inefficient and simultaneously rewarded the enterprising. At the heart of this process was self-interest. By maximizing individual profits in a free market, the prosperity of the nation as a whole was increased.