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....

Engaging, thought-provoking, and groundbreaking, The Immortal Mind shows here that some aspect of who we are is spiritual and immortal, transcending the physical body.

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....

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....

In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the listener on a grand tour of 100 years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction....

In 20 captivating lectures, Professor Suzanne Pilaar Birch shares her expertise and passion for discovery as she peels back the years to expose the emergence and lives of early humans....

The New York Times best-selling author of Darwin’s Doubt presents groundbreaking scientific evidence of the existence of God, based on breakthroughs in physics, cosmology, and biology....

In Science and the Akashic Field, philosopher and scientist Ervin Laszlo conveys the essential element of this information field in language that is accessible and clear....

In this classic, the world’s expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language....

"Correlation does not imply causation". This mantra has been invoked by scientists for decades and has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. But today, that taboo is dead....

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....

Predicting society’s present addiction to technology, our challenges with data privacy, and the dramatic increase in drug overdoses and depression that have accompanied a technology-induced lack of purpose, The Unabomber’s vision of the future has become our reality....

The authors of the best-selling Bold and The Rise of Superman explore altered states of consciousness and how they can ignite passion, fuel creativity, and accelerate problem solving....

By calling everything into doubt, Descartes laid the foundations of modern philosophy....

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.

A journey through history's most famous limbs, organs, and appendages, from TikTok medical historian Dr Suzie Edge....

"Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science; but man needs them both." These are the words of Fritjof Capra...

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman....

The Enchiridion is a collection of the most profound teachings of Epictetus (c. 55-135 AD), who taught that philosophy is a way of life and not just a matter of theory. The Enchiridion is a canonical text of Stoic philosophy, and contains all the fundamentals....

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....

In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us....

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.

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

This book conveys every aspect of the Apollo missions with breathtaking immediacy and stunning detail....

John Forbes Nash, Jr., a prodigy and legend by the age of 30, dazzled the mathematical world by solving a series of deep problems deemed "impossible" by other mathematicians....

Alcune storie sono troppo assurde per non essere raccontate, come l'epico scontro Alessandro Volta VS Luigi Galvani, tra rane morte ed energia elettrica che ha ispirato la nascita del mostro di Frankenstein. O ancora Stephen Hawking e quella sua fissa per i buchi neri, Margherita Hack che pedalava verso l'osservatorio tra le bombe della seconda guerra mondiale, Richard Feynman che scassinava casseforti durante il progetto Manhattan, Lord Kelvin il barone della morte termica dell'Universo, Enrico Fermi che ha scisso l'atomo e dato il via all'era nucleare.

Today it's routine to take photos from an airplane window, use a camera underwater, or watch a movie or view an X-ray. But the photographic innovations more than a century ago that made such things possible were experimental, revelatory, and sometimes dangerous. In Flashes of Brilliance, New York Times photo editor Anika Burgess engagingly blends art, science, and social history to reveal the most dramatic developments in photography from its birth in the 1830s to the early twentieth century.

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. Once revered as nature's perfect nourishment, milk became public enemy number one as germ theory unleashed collective panic about the invisible world within our food. Forrest Maready uncovers the fascinating, forgotten story of how this fear—epitomized by the notorious "swill milk" scandal—reshaped our food landscape forever.

C'è chi si indispettisce, c'è chi si esalta e c'è invece chi si rende conto, come il giovane Heisenberg durante la sua tormentata convalescenza a Helgoland, che probabilmente il traguardo è proprio questo: smettere di ascoltare il mondo come lo si è ascoltato fino a quel momento e avventurarsi verso una forma di comprensione assolutamente nuova. Per quanto terrore possa, a tratti, ispirare. È la via che ha preferito Benjamín Labatut, ricostruendo alcune scene che hanno deciso la nascita della scienza moderna.

A mother kisses her child's scraped knee. A father embraces his long-lost son. A dog greets its owner with desperate joy. Every culture, every species, every corner of the living world engages in these intimate acts of connection. We've been told these are merely displays of affection. But what if there’s something more? WHAT IF A KISS IS MORE THAN JUST A KISS? For the first time in human history, we are starting to see the hidden force that builds life through connection—not because we discovered something new, but because we have broken something ancient.

In 1869, the Atlantic Monthly magazine published a new novella in serial form. This bizarre tale, The Brick Moon, was written by a historian (and Unitarian minister) named Edward Everett Hale, who had already written several well-received novels and articles. However, this was something completely different today, as it was in the genre of what is today considered science fiction. Many people compared the new work to the previous novels of French writer Jules Verne, including From the Earth to the Moon, but Hale’s work was presented as a genuine account of a previous experiment.

When Neil Armstrong first set foot in the lunar dust, the Earth held its breath. That one small step forever changed our view of what was possible, sparking a dramatic expansion of humankind's cosmic awareness. When we gain a new perspective, a transformation begins, profoundly altering the understanding of the world our human experience had previously granted us.

In "Icarus; or, The Future of Science," Bertrand Russell explores the potential consequences of scientific advancement, drawing parallels between the myth of Icarus and the development of technology. He argues that while science can lead to progress, it also poses risks, particularly regarding power and societal structures. Russell suggests that scientific advancements, especially in the physical sciences, can increase power, lead to industrialism and war, and necessitate large-scale organization, which could potentially be used for oppressive purposes.

Was könnte da der Sinn des Lebens sein? Der Wissenschaftsinfluencer Tim Vollert hat darauf eine faszinierende Antwort, und die liegt in der Physik. Auf seiner spannenden Reise vom Urknall bis zum Kältetod des Universums erklärt er nicht nur die Physik des Kosmos, sondern auch die Biologie hinter der Entstehung des Lebens.

Fun, funny, blasphemous, easy to understand but hard to refute: GOD DOES NOT EXIST BUT, IF HE DOES, HE’S NOT GOOD, AND ANYWAY, A GOOD GOD WOULD NOT WRITE YOUR BIBLE OR ENDORSE YOUR RELIGION is a comprehensive look at all the ways in which it is possible to deny the existence of God, and what it means for someone to say that they're an atheist.