You Gotta Know
You Gotta Know These Non-Fiction Works
The following table lists the 50 most-frequently referenced works of non-fiction in NAQT questions as of October 1, 2005. While you really gotta know their creators, these are also some of the works about which more substantive questions are written, so teams should be prepared for questions on their key ideas, cultural context, and circumstances of creation.
| Rank | Title | Genre | Creator | Date | Freq. |
| 1 | Leviathan | Politics | Thomas Hobbes | 1651 | 48 |
| 2 | The Republic | Politics | Plato | 4th Cent. BC | 39 |
| 3 | Common Sense | Politics | Thomas Paine | 1776 | 36 |
| 4 | Principia Mathematica | Physics | Isaac Newton | 1667 | 35 |
| 5 | The Prince | Politics | Niccoló Machiavelli | 1513 | 33 |
| 6 | The Social Contract | Politics | Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 1762 | 33 |
| 7 | An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations | Economics | Adam Smith | 1776 | 33 |
| 8 | J'accuse | Open Letter | Émile(-Édouard-Charles-Antoine) Zola | 1898 | 33 |
| 9 | The Elements | Math | Euclid | c. 300 BC | 30 |
| 10 | Coming of Age in Samoa | Anthro. | Margaret Mead | 1928 | 28 |
| 11 | The Communist Manifesto | Politics | Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels | 1848 | 28 |
| 12 | Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God | Religious | Jonathan Edwards | 1741 | 27 |
| 13 | The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money | Economics | John Maynard Keynes | 1936 | 27 |
| 14 | Pragmatism | Philosophy | William James | 1907 | 26 |
| 15 | Book of Mormon | Religious | Joseph Smith(, Jr.) (traditional translator) | 1830 (1st pub) | 26 |
| 16 | Qur'an | Religious | Muhammad | 652 | 25 |
| 17 | Meditations | Philosophy | Marcus Aurelius | c. 161-180 | 25 |
| 18 | On The Origin of Species | Biology | Charles Darwin | 1859 | 25 |
| 19 | Ethics | Philosophy | Benedict de Spinoza | 1663 | 24 |
| 20 | Rig Veda | Religious | Unknown | c. 1500 BC | 24 |
| 21 | The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism | Sociology | Max Weber | 1904 | 24 |
| 22 | Apology | Philosophy | Plato | c. 428-348 BC | 23 |
| 23 | Utilitarianism | Philosophy | John Stuart Mill | 1863 | 23 |
| 24 | I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Autobiog. | Maya Angelou | 1970 | 23 |
| 25 | Critique of Pure Reason | Philosophy | Immanuel Kant | 1781 | 22 |
| 26 | Summa theologica | Theology | Thomas Aquinas | 1265 | 22 |
| 27 | Cross of Gold speech | Speech | William Jennings Bryan | 1896 | 21 |
| 28 | The Gospel According to Matthew | Religious | Saint Matthew | 1st century | 21 |
| 29 | Vedas | Religious | Anonymous | 1500 to 1000 BC | 21 |
| 30 | The American Crisis | Politics | Thomas Paine | 1776 | 21 |
| 31 | The Federalist Papers | Politics | Alexander; John Jay, and James Madison Hamilton | 1787 | 21 |
| 32 | Novum Organum | Philosophy | Francis Bacon | 1620 | 21 |
| 33 | Principia Mathematica | Math | Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell | 1910-1913 | 21 |
| 34 | Essay on Population | Essay | Thomas (Robert) Malthus | 1798 | 20 |
| 35 | Beyond Good and Evil | Philosophy | Friedrich Nietzsche | 1886 | 20 |
| 36 | Philippics | Speech | Demosthenes | 351-341 BC | 20 |
| 37 | The Book of Psalms | Religious | David (traditionally) | various | 19 |
| 38 | Upanishads | Religious | Anonymous | 600 BC | 19 |
| 39 | The Affluent Society | Economics | John Kenneth Galbraith | 1959 | 19 |
| 40 | Almagest | Astronomy | Ptolemy of Alexandria (Claudius Ptolemaeus) | 150 | 19 |
| 41 | The Chrysanthemum and the Sword | Anthro. | Ruth (Fulton) Benedict | 1946 | 19 |
| 42 | Crito | Philosophy | Plato | 350 BC | 19 |
| 43 | Phaedo | Philosophy | Plato | 350 BC | 19 |
| 44 | The Gulag Archipelago | History | Aleksandr (Isayevich) Solzhenitsyn | 1973 | 19 |
| 45 | The Myth of Sisyphus | Philosophy | Albert Camus | 1942 | 18 |
| 46 | Patterns of Culture | Anthro. | Ruth (Fulton) Benedict | 1934 | 18 |
| 47 | Silent Spring | Advocacy | Rachel Carson | 1962 | 18 |
| 48 | Reflections on the Revolution in France | Essay | Edmund Burke | 1790 | 18 |
| 49 | Poetics | Criticism | Aristotle | 340 BC | 18 |
| 50 | A Dictionary of the English Language | Reference | Samuel Johnson | 1755 | 18 |
NAQT has complete lists of the works of literature, non-fiction, art, and music that have been mentioned in its questions, sorted by frequency, available for purchase by coaches or teams for use as study guides.
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