This is a list of controversial non-fiction books aimed at the general reader which discuss controversial issues, or are (or were at the time of writing) controversial for other reasons. For controversial fictional books, see list of banned books.

The intention is to provide

1. a reading list of the pivotal works, good or bad, in controversial subjects
2. a list of books and authors that may be good candidates for new articles

Criteria for inclusion:

• This list is intended to be selective, not exhaustive.
• The standard for books written in the last 40 years is necessarily weaker than that for older books, as there is no way of knowing whether these books will be as highly regarded (or reviled) in the decades to come. Their topical nature makes them important, and so they should be included here.

This list is alphabetical by topic, and books should be ordered by publication date within topics

Agriculture

• 1940: An Agricultural Testament by Sir Albert Howard

Anthropology

• 1928: Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
• 1997: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
• 2000: Darkness in El Dorado by Patrick Tierney

Artificial intelligence and the nature of consciousness

• 1976: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
• 1986: The Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky
• 1990: The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose
• 1991: Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett

Astronomy

• 1543: De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium by Nicolaus Copernicus
• 1632: Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei

Business and bureaucracy

• 1969: The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter

Cosmology

• 1986: The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler
• 1987: Quasar, Redshifts and Controversies by Halton Arp
• 1998: by Halton Arp
• 2002: A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram

Drug culture

• 1967: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
• 1991: PiHKAL by Alexander Shulgin

Environmentalism

• 1798: An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus
• 1962: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• 1968: The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich
• 1972: The Limits to Growth; A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind
• 1981: The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon
• 2001: The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjørn Lomborg

Evolution

• 1859: The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
• 1976: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
• 1995: Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett

Feminist theory

• 1970: The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer

Futurology

• 1970: Future Shock by Alvin Toffler
• 1982: Megatrends by John Naisbitt
• 2003: Our Final Hour (UK title: Our Final Century) by Martin Rees

Globalization

• 1968: War and Peace in the Global Village by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
• 2000: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies by Naomi Klein
• 2002: World on Fire:How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability by Amy Chua

History

• 1987: Black Athena (volume I) by Martin Bernal
• 1992: The End of History by Francis Fukuyama
• 1994: by Anatoly Timofeevich Fomenko
• 1996: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
• 1996: Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Goldhagen
• 1999: by Anatoly Timofeevich Fomenko

Media

• 1957: The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard
• 1964: by Marshall McLuhan
• 1967: The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan
• 1977: Mass-Mediated Culture by Michael R. Real
• 1985: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman

Philosophy of science

• 1998 Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by E. O. Wilson.

Politics

• 1512: The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
• 1651: Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
• 1791: The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
• 1848: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
• 1925/1926: Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
• 1968: Coup D'État by Edward Luttwak
• 1970: The Islamic Declaration [1] by Alija Izetbegovic
• 2001: Stupid White Men by Michael Moore
• 2003: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken

Psychiatry

• 1961: The Myth of Mental Illness by Thomas Szasz

Race and intelligence

• 1981/1996: The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
• 1994: The Bell Curve by R. J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray

Religion

• 1795: The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
• 1950: Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard
• 1970: The Late, Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey
• 1988: Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism by John Shelby Spong
• 1997: The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin

Sociology

• 1956: The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills