I highly recommend Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik, it’s about the materials that make our modern world possible, like concrete and steel and stuff. Goes very into detail with the cultures that produced them, how they’re currently being used, and why they’re so key to our modern way of life.
Another great one would be Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which is about how human kind separated themselves from other proto-human species like the Neanderthals by developing common myths, like religion, countries, and currency which allowed us to form social bonds with people from outside our tribes, allowing human society to grow massive and take over the world. Really breaks down the core common myths that almost everyone in the modern world believes in how they help us build a better world.
Edit: just realized this was supposed to be a top 5, but these are my only two recs lol
BernardFerguson1944 on
*The Making of the Atomic Bomb* by Richard Rhodes.
clydem on
Obviously these are informed by what I happen to find interesting and important.
Science; *A Short History of Nearly Everything* by Bryson, *Superintelligence* by Bostrom, *Misbehaving* by Thaler
History: *On Politics* by Ryan, *The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich* by Shirer, *Strategy: A History* by Freedman
Philosophy: *Private Government* by Anderson, *Real Freedom for All* by Van Parijs, *The Meditations* by Descartes.
phxsunswoo on
Cosmos by Carl Sagan,
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins,
The End of the Myth by Greg Grandin,
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow,
Determined by Robert Sapolsky
5 Comments
>science
* Your Inner Fish by Neal Shubin
* The machinery of Life by David Goodsell. This is a bit drier but it’s a great intro to biology as a whole.
* A City On Mars by the Weinersmiths. Easily readable and humorous book about the challenges of space travel and colonization.
>history
A while back I found [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4o1n26/i_want_to_read_a_book_like_guns_germs_and_steel/) in /r/AskHistorians which recommends some books. I have so far only read Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, which i thought was good.
I highly recommend Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik, it’s about the materials that make our modern world possible, like concrete and steel and stuff. Goes very into detail with the cultures that produced them, how they’re currently being used, and why they’re so key to our modern way of life.
Another great one would be Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which is about how human kind separated themselves from other proto-human species like the Neanderthals by developing common myths, like religion, countries, and currency which allowed us to form social bonds with people from outside our tribes, allowing human society to grow massive and take over the world. Really breaks down the core common myths that almost everyone in the modern world believes in how they help us build a better world.
Edit: just realized this was supposed to be a top 5, but these are my only two recs lol
*The Making of the Atomic Bomb* by Richard Rhodes.
Obviously these are informed by what I happen to find interesting and important.
Science; *A Short History of Nearly Everything* by Bryson, *Superintelligence* by Bostrom, *Misbehaving* by Thaler
History: *On Politics* by Ryan, *The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich* by Shirer, *Strategy: A History* by Freedman
Philosophy: *Private Government* by Anderson, *Real Freedom for All* by Van Parijs, *The Meditations* by Descartes.
Cosmos by Carl Sagan,
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins,
The End of the Myth by Greg Grandin,
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow,
Determined by Robert Sapolsky