Reading path
Big Ideas About Humanity
Where we came from, how we got here, and how to think clearly about the world now.
Sometimes the most useful thing a book does is zoom all the way out. Seven that reset your sense of scale and sharpen how you read the news.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Start wide. Harari's history of our species — how shared fictions let strangers cooperate at scale — reframes almost everything.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Diamond's answer to why history broke the way it did: geography and biology, not the myths we tell about ourselves.
Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World
Diamond's argument brought up to this morning's news. Marshall reads ten maps to show why Russia can't stop worrying about flat ground and why Africa's rivers never built empires.
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bryson on how we came to know what we know — the whole of science as a wonderfully human story of blunders and geniuses.
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World
Rosling's antidote to doom. The world is better than you think, and here are the instincts that keep fooling you.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Back to the present. Harari on the questions that matter now — tech, truth, meaning — once the long view has recalibrated you.
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
End on where it's going. Having reduced famine, plague and war to manageable problems, Harari argues the next agenda is immortality, bliss and godlike power.