Social & Political Reform

Jane Eyre, 1984 and Anne Frank's diary all make it onto novelist Amanda Craig's list of books that changed the world. On Black Beauty's underrated importance: 'People forget that William Wilberforce, who abolished the slave trade, also founded the RSPCA.'

We need to build an entirely new market system, not just patch up the old one, says economics commentator Anatole Kaletsky. He picks the best books to help us think about what form a new capitalism might take.

The founder of the British Social Democratic Party (SDP) says that the House of Lords should be a fully elected body, and that Tony Blair’s careerism is a disgrace. David Owen selects five books on constitutional reform.