Reading Collection
HourLife Collection · 10 books · 71 insights
History Worth Knowing
The past, made urgent. Books that explain how we got here.
Collection Index
A shelf with an argument.
Every collection gathers books around a practical life problem. Open the title that feels closest, then let the shelf widen the frame.
Read
01
Guns, Germs, and Steel
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.
Read
02
How We Got to Now
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.
Read
03
Red Famine
Memory is the only form of immortality the poor have.
Read
04
Sapiens
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.
Read
05
The Anthropocene Reviewed
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.
Read
06
The Only Plane in the Sky
To forget the dead is to kill them twice. History is the only immortality the poor have.
Read
07
The Spy and the Traitor
Trust is the currency of espionage—and the most valuable commodity to betray.
Read
08
Why Nations Fail
Nations succeed not because they are chosen, but because they choose institutions that channel human ambition toward creating rather than extracting.
Read
09
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Clarity is power. Use it well.
Read
10
American Prometheus
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