Reading Collection
History Worth Knowing
The past, made urgent. Books that explain how we got here.
Inside this room
10
Books
71
Insights
Read in order, or open the book that matches the problem in front of you.
Books in Order
Start anywhere. Keep going.
The strongest reading paths usually start with the problem you can name clearly.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Jared Diamond
The more we know about human history, the more we learn that its winners were the people who were luckiest in the geography and animals they inherited.
How We Got to Now
Steven Johnson
The best way to predict the future is to understand the past. Innovation is not about sudden breakthroughs—it's about seeing what's adjacent to what we already know.
Red Famine
Anne Applebaum
Memory is the only form of immortality the poor have.
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
We are not gods, and we are not beasts. We are something in between, and that in-betweenness is the source of both our power and our responsibility.
The Anthropocene Reviewed
John Green
We cannot live only on Earth. We also live in the stories we tell ourselves about Earth. And I believe that we have a responsibility to tell good stories.
The Only Plane in the Sky
Garrett M. Graff
To forget the dead is to kill them twice. History is the only immortality the poor have.
The Spy and the Traitor
John le Carré & Oleg Gordievsky · 1989
Trust is the currency of espionage—and the most valuable commodity to betray.
Why Nations Fail
Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson · 2012
Nations succeed not because they are chosen, but because they choose institutions that channel human ambition toward creating rather than extracting.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Yuval Noah Harari
Clarity is power. Use it well.
American Prometheus
Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin
The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance — these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community.
Next Rooms