Books like 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

01

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari · History

Sapiens traces the full arc of human history from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa roughly 70,000 years ago to the present.

A kindred history read.

02

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jared Diamond · Science

Guns, Germs, and Steel is Jared Diamond's attempt to answer a question posed to him by a Papua New Guinean politician named Yali: why did Europeans end up with so much cargo — wealth, technology, power — while other peoples had comparatively little?

A kindred history read.

03

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

Charles C. Mann · History

Where 1491 ends, 1493 begins.

A kindred history read.

04

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson · Science

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's attempt to understand the scientific story of everything — from the Big Bang to the emergence of modern humans — by spending three years talking to scientists and reading science history.

A kindred history read.

05

Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning

Timothy Snyder · History

Black Earth is Timothy Snyder's reinterpretation of the Holocaust that places it in an ecological and political framework rather than a strictly ideological one.

Both dig into ecology.

06

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Dee Brown · History

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, published in 1970, is Dee Brown's account of the systematic dispossession of Native American peoples across the American West between 1860 and 1890.

Both dig into indigenous history.

07

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches

S. C. Gwynne · History

Empire of the Summer Moon, published in 2010, follows the rise of the Comanche empire on the southern Great Plains and the long, brutal conflict between the Comanches and the expanding United States.

Both dig into indigenous history.

08

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

William McDonough & Michael Braungart · Science

Cradle to Cradle is William McDonough and Michael Braungart's argument that the conventional approach to environmentalism — reducing, reusing, recycling, being "less bad" — is insufficient and in some ways misleading.

Both dig into ecology.

09

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

Merlin Sheldrake · Science

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist who has spent his career studying fungi, and Entangled Life is his account of what fungi are, what they do, and why most people who think they know something about the natural world understand almost nothing about this kingdom of life.

Both dig into ecology.

10

Silent Spring

Rachel Carson · Science

Silent Spring, published in 1962, is Rachel Carson's investigation of the effects of synthetic pesticides — particularly DDT and related organochlorines — on birds, fish, insects, and the broader ecological web.

Both dig into ecology.

11

Spillover

David Quammen · Science

Spillover is David Quammen's exhaustive investigation into zoonotic disease — illness that jumps from animals to humans — and the ecological and evolutionary logic behind why such spillover events happen.

Both dig into ecology.

12

The Coming Plague

Laurie Garrett · Science

The Coming Plague, published in 1994, is Laurie Garrett's argument that the era of conquest over infectious disease declared in the 1960s was a dangerous illusion, and that the conditions for catastrophic new pandemics were already in place.

Both dig into ecology.