World History Philosophy

Counsels and Maxims is a classic work by noted German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. His work has influenced some of the modern world's greatest thinkers, including Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Erwin Schrödinger. This piece was originally translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders.

New York Times, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Discover bestselling author Steven Kotler has written extensively about those pivotal moments when science fiction became science fact...and fundamentally reshaped the world. Now he gathers the best of his best, updated and expanded upon, to guide listeners on a mind-bending tour of the far frontier, and how these advances are radically transforming our lives.

Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept - the mind - emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine but fully neither.

America's first frontier was not the West; it was the sea, and no one writes more eloquently about that watery wilderness than Nathaniel Philbrick. In his best-selling In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick probed the nightmarish dangers of the vast Pacific. Now, in an epic sea adventure, he writes about one of the most ambitious voyages of discovery the Western world has ever seen - the US Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842.

Emerson's ideas are alive and well and very much with us today. Consider that Emerson, now an establishment figure, was a rebel in his time. He could find no relevance in established religion. But, unlike others, he set out to reform it. Many of his ideas now seem obvious and as American as apple pie.

In this groundbreaking work, Kwame Anthony Appiah, hailed as "one of the most relevant philosophers today" (New York Times Book Review), changes the way we understand human behavior and the way social reform is brought about. In brilliantly arguing that new democratic movements over the last century have not been driven by legislation from above, Appiah explores the end of the duel in aristocratic England, the tumultuous struggles over foot binding in 19th-century China, the uprising of ordinary people against Atlantic slavery, and much more.

The invention of numerals is perhaps the greatest abstraction the human mind has ever created. Virtually everything in our lives is digital, numerical, or quantified. The story of how and where we got these numerals, which we so depend on, has for thousands of years been shrouded in mystery. Finding Zero is an adventure-filled saga of Amir Aczel's lifelong obsession: to find the original sources of our numerals.

Feeling feverish, tired, or achy? Listening to Gina Kolata's engrossing account of the 1918 Influenza epidemic is sure to give you the chills. A gripping work of science writing, Flu addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and considers what can be done to prevent it.

This new book by Spencer Wells, the internationally known geneticist, anthropologist, author, and director of the Genographic Project, focuses on the seminal event in human history: mankind's decision to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.

Regardless of how much has been written about it, new information continues to be discovered about the thousands of events that make up the six years that shaped the world we live in today.

How remarkable that an Italian living in the 15th and 16th centuries should lend his name to a word still in common usage in the English language today. Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote only one major work as a gift for his ruling Prince, Lorenzo de Medici. Machiavelli held office as a senior civil servant for 14 years until the downfall of the Republic in 1512. No longer officially employed to impart advice, instead Machiavelli poured out his ideas and resentment in his writings.

The first World War was one of the most devastating conflicts in our history. The tumult and chaos that remained in the wake of the first World War had far-reaching and devastating consequences, not just for Europe and the survivors of the war, but for the entire world. The ruins of Europe provided a fertile breeding ground for fierce nationalism, which led to the rise of the Third Reich and allowed the evil of Adolf Hitler to go unchecked for far too long.

In researching one of history's greatest scientific quests, a mission to measure the Earth and define the meter, Ken Alder stumbled on a 200-year-old secret: The meter, it turns out, is in error. This is a story of two men, a secret, and a timeless human dilemma: is it permissible to perpetuate a small lie in the service of a larger truth?

End Times is a compelling work of skilled reportage that peels back the layers of complexity around the unthinkable - and inevitable - end of humankind. From asteroids and artificial intelligence to volcanic supereruption to nuclear war, veteran science reporter and TIME editor Bryan Walsh provides a stunning panoramic view of the most catastrophic threats to the human race.

The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility and courage - to spur citizens and their leaders to take the difficult actions necessary to avert such a fate. Today, after more than 70 years of great-power peace, Americans have lost their sense of tragedy. They have forgotten that the descent into violence and war has been all too common throughout human history.

Opium tells the extraordinary and at times harrowing tale of how we arrived at today's crisis, "mak[ing] timely and startling connections among painkillers, politics, finance, and society" (Laurence Bergreen). The story begins with the discovery of poppy artifacts in ancient Mesopotamia, and goes on to explore how Greek physicians and obscure chemists discovered opium's effects and refined its power, how colonial empires marketed it around the world, and eventually how international drug companies developed a range of powerful synthetic opioids that led to an addiction epidemic.

Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men was written in response to a competition run by the Academy of Dijon answering the prompt: What is the origin of inequality among men, and whether such inequality is authorized by natural law? Rousseau puts forth the concept of two types of inequity: natural/physical and moral/political. He focuses on moral inequality and its link to power and wealth. He also covers the areas of self-love, compassion for others, and free-agency.

Rene Descartes, mathematician, scientist, and first "modern philosopher", wrote Meditations on First Philosophy, a six-part treatise first published in Latin in 1641, to deconstruct "belief" and, using reason and science, discuss the only things we can truly know for sure. Each of the six parts of this book represents six of Descartes’ meditations that occurred on six subsequent days, making it also, in no small part, an autobiographical piece of work.

We may imagine that science is a process of breakthroughs and light bulb moments. But in reality, science goes wrong 99% of the time. Almost every idea a scientist comes up with is quickly disproved by a failed experiment or rival research. Science moves at a rate of inches per decade and we like it that way. But occasionally, just occasionally, a complete fluke happens and changes everything. This is a rip-roaring adventure through science gone wrong, accidentally changing humanity for the better.

The definitive history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon agency that has quietly shaped war and technology for nearly 60 years. Founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, the agency's original mission was to create "the unimagined weapons of the future". Over the decades, DARPA has been responsible for countless inventions and technologies that extend well beyond military technology.