The Guardian has published a list of what its writers have judged the 100 greatest non-fiction books of all time. They’ve split the list into categories: art, biography, culture, environment, history, journalism, literature, mathematics, memoir, mind, music, philosophy, politics, religion, science, society and travel. It’s a fascinating list but, being British, it has an understandable bias towards Britain and Europe. Robert Hughes' The Shock of the New and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch were the only Australian names to have made the list.
Are there any books that have been unfairly left out? Well, we thought Norman Davies' Europe: A History would have been a shoe-in. But it has led us to wonder - what would an Australian list look like? Or at least, what would be on an Australian list of the greatest non-fiction books?