History & Philosophy

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science....

John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest infectious disease.

Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science...

Data-based and rigorously researched, How to Feed the World is an indispensable analysis of how the world really produces and consumes its food—and a scientist's exploration of how we can successfully feed a growing population without killing the planet.

How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Find out....

Based on the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos....

For the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s new book is a guide to meditation as a rational spiritual practice informed by neuroscience and psychology....

In Air-Borne, award-winning New York Times columnist and author Carl Zimmer leads us on an odyssey through the living atmosphere and through the history of its discovery.

Bringing his cosmic perspective to civilization on Earth, Neil deGrasse Tyson shines new light on the crucial fault lines of our time—war, politics, religion, truth, beauty, gender, and race—in a way that stimulates a deeper sense of unity for us all....

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is essential listening for understanding the history, philosophy, and evolution of science....

If there is one belief that has united the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it is the tacit assumption that humans are bad. It's a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives....

From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest—a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery....

Einstein’s Fridge tells the incredible epic story of the scientists who, over two centuries, harnessed the power of heat and ice and formulated a theory essential to comprehending our universe....

The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology....

Richard Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes....

The author of the best seller The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch, explores the four most fundamental strands of human knowledge: quantum physics, and the theories of knowledge, computation, and evolution - and their unexpected connections....

Today's "machine-learning" systems, trained by data, are so effective that we've invited them to see and hear for us - and to make decisions on our behalf. But alarm bells are ringing. Systems cull résumés until, years later, we discover that they have inherent gender biases.

An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible—a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish....

Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley's most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs....

A captivating exploration of deep time and humanity's search for purpose from the world-renowned physicist and best-selling author of The Elegant Universe....

From the masters of storytelling-meets-science, Patient Zero tells the long and fascinating history of disease outbreaks—how they start, how they spread, the science that lets us understand them, and how we race to destroy them before they destroy us....

For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best....

An oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem....

Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it help us understand why there is so much irrationality in the world? Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now (Bill Gates’ "new favorite book of all time”) answers all the questions here....

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen....

We have never had to feed as many people as we do today. And yet, we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. As a result, in our economic, political, and everyday choices, we take for granted and fail to prioritize the thing that makes all our lives possible: food. In this ambitious, myth-busting book, Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today.

Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air—and thousands of living things. From the ground to the stratosphere, the air teems with invisible life. This last great biological frontier remains so mysterious that it took over two years for scientists to finally agree that the COVID pandemic was caused by an airborne virus. In Air-Borne, award-winning New York Times columnist and author Carl Zimmer leads us on an odyssey through the living atmosphere and through the history of its discovery.

Measles, once seemingly defeated, is resurgent around the globe. Why, at a time when biomedical science is so advanced, do parents turn away from vaccination, endangering their own children and the health of the wider population? Using a combination of patient narrative, historical analysis, and scientific research, Dr. Adam Ratner, pediatrician and infectious disease specialist, argues that the reawakening of measles and the subsequent coronavirus pandemic are bellwethers of forgotten knowledge—indicators of decaying trust in science and an underfunded public health infrastructure.

Does Revelation 8:10–11 describe an asteroid? Is the Wormwood star from Revelation 8 already headed toward Earth? Are NASA and high-level government officials aware of an asteroid that is on a collision course with our planet? Is that why President Trump sanctioned a colossal increase to planetary defense? Do the prophecies from ancient cultures and religions across the globe all point to a catastrophic planetary event that has scientists and politicians taking extreme preventative measures under the public radar?

It took a brain surgeon who's spent a lifetime in the operating room experiencing the brain's union of form and function to write this book. Cerebral Entanglements, unlike most books on the brain, looks at the intimate and vital emotions in our lives, and shows as well, how neuroimaging studies can transform our understanding of crucial emotional or mental health concerns.

In Ray Kurzweil's New York Times bestseller The Singularity is Near, the futurist and entrepreneur describes the Singularity, a likely future utterly different than anything we can imagine. The Singularity is triggered by the tremendous growth of human and computing intelligence that is an almost inevitable outcome of Moore's Law. Since the book's publication, the coming of the Singularity is now eagerly anticipated by many of the leading thinkers in Silicon Valley, from PayPal mastermind Peter Thiel to Google co-founder Larry Page.

A Journey into the Greatest Mystery of All Time is the unrelenting force that shapes our existence, carrying us forward with or without our consent. It erodes mountains, reshapes civilizations, and marks every heartbeat, every breath, and every fleeting moment of our lives. We struggle against it, fearing the losses it demands—youth, loved ones, memories, and, ultimately, life itself. But must we be helpless victims of time’s merciless current? Or can we rise above its grip and unlock the deeper truths hidden within its flow? The Existential Terror of Time’s Passage Throughout history...

A Never-Before-Told Story of Ambition, Innovation, and the Limits of Human Exploration What if humanity’s greatest leap into the cosmos was not to the Moon—but to Venus? In Beyond the Lunar Frontier, Gary Covella, Ph.D., unveils a gripping, untold narrative of the bold vision that could have reshaped space exploration forever. This is the story of a manned mission to Venus, a dream born in the heat of the Cold War, fueled by the audacious spirit of the Apollo era, and ultimately abandoned in the face of insurmountable challenges. The Vision That Almost Was In the 1960s, as NASA ...

The world is not as we think it is. We are taught standard accepted beliefs from birth and many of them are not correct or a misunderstanding of the truth. Who am I to say so? At this writing I’m nearly seventy years old and I’ve spent my life observing reality as an engineer and explorer of the unknown. I’ve had many weird and paranormal experiences and done lots of research. Many patterns have made themselves known to me and this is why I make these types of statements. This book is an effort to shed light on these misunderstandings and change your perception of the world we live in.

How the Military-Industrial Complex Shapes Technological Progress By Kevin L. Michel A groundbreaking exploration of how war, security, and innovation have shaped the modern world—and the urgent question of whether we can redirect technological progress toward a more just and sustainable future. For centuries, military research and innovation have fueled some of humanity’s most transformative technologies. From gunpowder and nuclear energy to the internet, GPS, and artificial intelligence, many of today’s most powerful tools were first developed under the banner of national security. ...