books

If you lost your religion, it might be because the internet and social media are having a secularizing effect on American society.

This year marks 2,000 years since the birth of the Roman author of the first natural encyclopedia.

In 1934, American Communists translated a Stalinist book about revolution into a children’s game. Curiously, it didn’t catch on.

Skepticism is appropriate when gazing into the futurist’s crystal ball.

Instead of walking a mile in someone’s shoes, try reading a chapter in their book.

According to Peter Ward’s “Medea hypothesis,” photosynthesizing organisms regularly doom most life on Earth by over-consuming carbon dioxide.

Science will lead us to a universal morality and a cosmic religion.

Simple physics makes hauling vast ice chunks thousands of miles fiendishly difficult — but not impossible.

Alibaba has played a key role in China’s meteoric economic rise.

While cities drive national economic growth, their political geography means they cannot effectively deal with inequality, poverty, and other socioeconomic problems.

Forgetfulness isn’t always a “glitch” in our memories; it can be a tool to help us make sense of the present and plan for the future.

Unlock the full potential of your creativity with holistic detachment. This is the way of the editor.

Radical Emotional Acceptance calls on you to celebrate all of life’s emotions — even the negative ones.

Humans are good visual thinkers, too, but we tend to privilege verbal thinking.

Entrenched business wisdom says that community-led economic systems are pure fantasy. Douglas Rushkoff disagrees.

Warm relationships protect your mind and body from the slings and arrows of life.

When we don’t find ways to relieve chronic stress, personal burnout is the likely consequence.

It may be possible to give people the tools to withstand difficulty before it attaches to them.

“Once quantum mechanics is applied to the entire cosmos, it uncovers a three-thousand-year-old idea.”

Computerized, job-focused learning undercuts the true value of higher education. Liberal arts should be our model for the future.

In the early 20th century, a young biochemist named Alexander Oparin set out to connect “the world of the living” to “the world of the dead.”

When you can’t enter flow, you can still lean on your internal rhythm.

Wealth concentration among elites was common in ancient nations, but the scale on which it took place in Egypt’s 18th Dynasty was unprecedented.

To the Greek philosopher, all of our actions ultimately aim at our own pleasure.

Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love my tsundoku.

The concept of burnout is nothing new. But there are ways to prevent burnout and promote greater engagement with work. 

The shift from steam to electricity was inevitable — but some foresaw it earlier than others.

Seneca thought the use of ice was a “true fever of the most malignant kind.”

These five great books should prompt us to work on what needs fixing the most in the world: ourselves.

Some of the weirdest characters in Greek mythology were Athenian kings.