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....

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....

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....

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.

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....

Over the last 220 years, society has evolved a universal belief that electricity is "safe" for humanity and the planet. Scientist and journalist Arthur Firstenberg disrupts this conviction by telling the story of electricity in a way it has never been told before....

Jem Bendell argues that reclaiming our freedoms is essential to soften the fall and regenerate the natural world. Escaping the efforts of panicking elites, we can advance an ecolibertarian agenda for both politics and practical action in a broken world....

A multidisciplinary and comparative investigation of the medical and social history of the major epidemics, this volume touches on themes such as the evolution of medical therapy, plague literature, poverty, the environment, and mass hysteria....

For fans of Wild and Lab Girl, Heartbreak is a uniquely immersive audiobook, merging science and self-discovery to change the way we think about loneliness, health, and what it means to fall in and out of love....

As the superpowers engaged in a game of nuclear one-upmanship in the late 1950s, eccentric physicist Nicholas Christofilos brought forth an outlandish, albeit ingenious, idea to defend the US from a Soviet attack....

This is an audiobook about AI and AI risk. But it's also more importantly about a community of people who are trying to think rationally about intelligence, and the places that these thoughts are taking them, and what insight they can and can't give us about the future of the human race....

A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality.....

One of our greatest philosophers and scientists of the mind asks where the self comes from - and how our selves can exist in the minds of others....

Listeners learn the difference between how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the human level - and then how each connects to the other....

Nothing in the universe is more complex than life. Throughout the skies, in oceans, and across lands, life is endlessly on the move....

The national bestseller chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 1991 is now available as an audiobook....

From the author of The Moth in the Iron Lung comes a riveting exploration of how science, technology, and fear transformed our relationship with one of humanity's most ancient foods.

Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet's epic 4.6 billion-year story....

Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost....

In the midst of spiraling ecological devastation, multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants....

What's sexy about saving the planet? Funny you should ask. Because that is precisely - or, perhaps, broadly - what Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens have spent many years bringing to light in their live art, exhibitions, and films....

The first full-length biography of George Ingle Finch - maverick Australian mountaineer, scientist, concert pianist and father of actor Peter Finch....

In this entertaining book, Donald R. Prothero explores the astonishing connections between climate and life through the ages, telling the remarkable stories of the scientists who made crucial discoveries.

Smart as hell and funny as f--k, What the F is mandatory listening for anyone who wants to know how and why we swear....

Tucked away in Siberia, there are furry, four-legged creatures with wagging tails and floppy ears that are as docile and friendly as any lapdog....

Voici une histoire radicalement nouvelle de l'énergie qui montre l’étrangeté fondamentale de la notion de transition. Elle explique comment matières et énergies sont reliées entre elles, croissent ensemble, s’accumulent et s’empilent les unes sur les autres. Pourquoi la notion de transition énergétique s’est-elle alors imposée ? Comment ce futur sans passé est-il devenu, à partir des années 1970, celui des gouvernements, des entreprises et des experts, bref, le futur des gens raisonnables ?

In this bold and interdisciplinary journey through neuroscience, theoretical physics, and artificial intelligence, neurologist Dr. Chris Reynolds proposes a revolutionary model of consciousness: the Probability Clock. At the heart of this model lies the thalamus—a central brain structure long known for relaying sensory input. But in Reynolds’ view, the thalamus does far more: it recursively filters, times, and shapes experience itself.

This book argues that we are entering an age where humanity must build truly complex things to continue our progress. This means learning to build as nature builds, and as it turns out, forces us to redefine knowledge and skill, and more broadly our scientific and engineering paradigm.

Nikola Tesla was one of history’s greatest scientists, and though he is best known for his pioneering work with electricity, the fact that he is mostly remembered solely for that actually does a disservice to his legacy.

Free Creations of the Human Mind: The Worlds of Albert Einstein presents a concise and nuanced account of Einstein's life and work embedded in his intellectual and social contexts. His life is interconnected with so many of the important political and intellectual movements of his era—Zionism, pacifism, Nazism, nuclear weapons, philosophy, civil rights, McCarthyism, the League of Nations, and substantial discoveries in epochal theories of special relativity and quantum theory.