Title Author Year of First Edition Subject Influence Reference The Art of War Sun Tzu ~500BC War Reference The Elements Euclid ~300BC Mathematics Reference Arthashastra Kautilya ~200BC Statecraft Reference De architectura Vitruvius ~30BC Architecture Reference Almagest Claudius Ptolemaeus 200s Astronomy Reference Vivekacūḍāmaṇi Adi Shankara 700s Philosophy Reference De re aedificatoria Leon Battista Alberti 1485 Architecture Reference The Prince Niccolò Machiavelli 1532 Politics Reference De revolutionibus orbium coelestium Nicolaus Copernicus 1543 Astronomy Reference Discourse on the Method René Descartes 1637 Philosophy Reference Two Treatises of Government John Locke 1660 Government Reference Opticks Isaac Newton 1704 Physics Reference The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith 1776 Economics Reference On the Origin of Species Charles Darwin 1856 Biology Reference A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism James Clerk Maxwell 1873 Physics Reference