12 books that changed the world / Melvyn Bragg.

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Principia mathematica / Isacc Newton -- Married love / Marie Stopes -- Magna Carta -- The rule book of Association Football -- On the origin of species / Chales Darwin -- On the aboliton of the slave trade / William Wilberforce -- A vindication of the rights of women / Mary Wollstonecraft -- Experimental researches in electricity / Michael Faraday -- Patent specification for Arkwright's spinning machine / Richard Arkwright -- The King James bible / William Tyndale -- An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations / Adam Smith -- The first folio / William Shakespeare.

Throughout history there have been moments of vital importance that have taken place not on the battlefield, or in the palaces of power, or even in the violence of nature, but between the pages of a book. Here are famous books by Darwin, Newton and Shakespeare plus Marie Stopes, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the rules to an obscure ball game...