"Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark stylethorough, yet rivetingfamine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age...

Archaeologist and historian Ian Morris explains that Western dominance is largely the result of the effects of geography on the everyday efforts of ordinary people as they deal with crises of resources, disease, migration, and climate. As geography and human ingenuity continue to interact, however, the world over the next hundred years will subsequently change in astonishing ways, transforming Western rule in the process.

2nd installment of Godfrey Reggio's apocalyptic "Qatsi" trilogy. This film calls into question everything we think we know about contemporary society. By juxtaposing images of ancient cultures with those of modern life, Powaqqatsi masterfully portrays the human cost of progress.

From philosophy and democracy to the catapult and the Olympics, the Ancient Greeks continue to influence all aspects of contemporary life. Read this book to find out more about how we encounter links to the ancient world every day.

"There's no doubt that technology has made it easier to communicate. It's also easier to shut someone out when we are confronted with online discourse. Why bother to understand strangers-or even acquaintances-when you can troll them, block them, or just click “Unfriend” and never look back? However briefly satisfying that might be, it's also potentially eroding one of our most human traits: empathy. In The Future of Feeling, Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips...

One of the most stunning achievements of moral philosophy is something we take for granted: moral universalism, or the idea that every human has equal moral worth. In What We Owe the Future, Oxford philosopher William MacAskill demands that we go a stepfurther, arguing that people not only have equal moral worth no matter where or how they live, but also no matter when they live. This idea has implications beyond the obvious (climate change) - including...

"A candid exploration of the state of outrage in our culture, how it debases our civil discourse, and how we can channel it back into thefights that matter, from radio host and activist Ashley "Dotty" Charles. We're living in a post-modern utopia of sorts, where thanks to our resolute predecessors, we've checked a bunch of items off our outrage shopping list. Slavery? Abolished. Apartheid? Not anymore buddy. Women's suffrage? Nailed it. But what do...

In this book the author transports readers to the dawn of the Renaissance and chronicles the life of an intrepid book lover who rescued the Roman philosophical text On the Nature of Things from certain oblivion. In this work he has crafted both a work of history and a story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it. Nearly six hundred...