In 2023 we asked the physiotherapy profession which texts of the 20th century they believed have most influenced them.
Seminal texts, sometimes called pivotal or landmark studies, are books that initially presented an idea of great importance or influence within a particular discipline. They are historic, and central to the ideas that follow.
Our objective was to choose a top 20 but because there were so many nominated, we’ve modified our criteria to be the top 20+. The selected texts were published across the entire century and we have displayed them below in order of publication date.
One notable exclusion was Gray’s Anatomy, although of course it was nominated. Whilst possibly the most-used text of the physiotherapy profession, this exclusion was solely because it was first published in the 19th century. Similarly, we have excluded some seminal texts published in the 21st century that were also nominated. Finally, despite some authors having multiple books nominated we included only one book per author.
It is interesting to note the evolution in cover styles and topics across the 100 years; demonstrating the growth and development of the profession over that period.
As hard as we tried, one of our challenges has been finding images of the front covers of all of the first editions. If you have a copy of any first editions please take a photo and send it to us. Also, in cases where the front cover of the book was blank we opted to use an image of the flyleaf page.
We are building a profile on each book, so simply click on the book to find out why it was considered a seminal text of the 20th century, and see if you agree.
