Books like The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

01

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Nicholas Carr · Science

The Shallows is Nicholas Carr's argument that the internet — and the way we habitually use it, skimming hyperlinked text, watching short videos, checking feeds — is reshaping the neural circuits responsible for deep reading and sustained concentration.

A kindred history read.

02

Weapons of Math Destruction

Cathy O'Neil · Science

Weapons of Math Destruction is mathematician and data scientist Cathy O'Neil's investigation of how algorithms — statistical models used to make decisions about people's lives — can perpetuate and amplify inequality rather than reduce it.

A kindred history read.

03

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Yuval Noah Harari · History

Homo Deus picks up where Sapiens left off, but turns to face the other direction.

A kindred history read.

04

The Second Machine Age

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee · Economics

The Second Machine Age is Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee's argument that digital technology has entered a qualitatively new phase — one in which machines can perform cognitive tasks previously reserved for humans, creating economic disruption and opportunity simultaneously.

A kindred history read.

05

The Master Algorithm

Pedro Domingos · Science

The Master Algorithm is Pedro Domingos's survey of machine learning — the field of computer science that creates algorithms capable of learning from data — organized around a central speculative thesis: that there exists, or may be found, a single master algorithm from which all learning can be derived.

A kindred history read.

06

Americana

Bhu Srinivasan · History

Americana is Bhu Srinivasan's attempt to tell the history of American capitalism through its defining industries and the entrepreneurs who built them.

Both dig into capitalism.

07

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

Sven Beckert · History

Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton argues that cotton was not just the raw material of the Industrial Revolution but the commodity through which modern capitalism was invented.

Both dig into capitalism.

08

The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels · History

Published in 1848 on the eve of a wave of European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a short political pamphlet that has shaped more history than almost any other document of its length.

Both dig into capitalism.

09

The Price of Time

Edward Chancellor · History

The Price of Time is Edward Chancellor's history of interest rates — what they are, how they have been set, and what happens when they are persistently pushed below their natural level.

Both dig into capitalism.

10

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Naomi Klein · History

Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, published in 2007, argues that free-market economic policies — privatization, deregulation, cuts to social spending — have historically been implemented not through democratic persuasion but by exploiting crises and disasters that leave populations too disoriented and traumatized to resist.

Both dig into capitalism.

11

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

Naomi Klein · History

Naomi Klein's central argument is that the climate crisis cannot be solved within the existing economic framework.

Both dig into capitalism.

12

1984

George Orwell · Philosophy

Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell's 1949 novel about a future England called Airstrip One, governed by the totalitarian Party under the figurehead Big Brother.

Both dig into surveillance.