Science · Similar reads
Books like The Better Angels of Our Nature
The best books like The Better Angels of Our Nature are Enlightenment Now, How the Mind Works, and The Language Instinct. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker is about violence, history, human progress. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- Enlightenment Now
01
Steven Pinker · Science
Enlightenment Now is Steven Pinker's argument that the ideals of the Enlightenment — reason, science, humanism, and progress — have been responsible for a dramatic and continuing improvement in human wellbeing across virtually every measurable dimension, and that these ideals are under threat from counter-Enlightenment movements on both the left and the right.
A kindred science read.
Read the summary → - How the Mind Works
02
Steven Pinker · Science
How the Mind Works is Steven Pinker's synthesis of cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, built around a central thesis: the mind is a computational system — a neural computer — shaped by natural selection to solve the adaptive problems that faced our ancestors on the Pleistocene savanna.
A kindred science read.
Read the summary → - The Language Instinct
03
Steven Pinker · Science
The Language Instinct is Steven Pinker's argument that language is not a cultural invention but a biological instinct — a specialized module in the human brain that evolved by natural selection, much as the eye evolved to see or the hand evolved to grasp.
A kindred science read.
Read the summary →
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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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.
Both dig into history.
Read the summary → - Guns, Germs, and Steel
05
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 science read.
Read the summary → - Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
06
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
Mary Roach · Science
Bonk is Mary Roach's investigation into the science of human sexuality — not the pop psychology of relationships, but the actual research: what scientists have done inside laboratory settings to understand how sex works, what they've discovered, and why the field has been so difficult to pursue given institutional and cultural resistance.
Both dig into psychology.
Read the summary → - Happy City
07
Charles Montgomery · Science
Happy City is Charles Montgomery's investigation into the relationship between the design of cities and the psychological well-being of their inhabitants.
Both dig into psychology.
Read the summary → - Laws of UX
08
Jon Yablonski · Science
Laws of UX is Jon Yablonski's collection of ten principles drawn from psychology and cognitive science that bear directly on user interface design.
Both dig into psychology.
Read the summary → - 12 Rules for Life
09
Jordan Peterson · Self-help
12 Rules for Life is Jordan Peterson's attempt to distill what clinical psychology, comparative mythology, the Bible, and evolutionary biology say about how to live.
Both dig into psychology.
Read the summary → - Between the World and Me
10
Ta-Nehisi Coates · Memoir
Between the World and Me is a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son, Samori, about what it means to live in a Black body in the United States.
Both dig into history.
Read the summary → - Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
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Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Isabel Wilkerson · Memoir
Isabel Wilkerson's second book proposes a reframing of American racial hierarchy: rather than thinking of racism primarily as prejudice, she argues that the United States has operated as a caste society, with Black Americans at the bottom of a rigidly maintained hierarchy similar in its structure — though different in its specific mechanisms — to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany.
Both dig into history.
Read the summary → - Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
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Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
Simon Schama · History
Simon Schama's Citizens was published to mark the bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989 and immediately became one of the most controversial histories of the event in decades.
Both dig into violence.
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Books like The Better Angels of Our Nature: quick answers
What are the best books like The Better Angels of Our Nature?
The best books like The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker are Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Better Angels of Our Nature, such as violence, history, human progress.
What should I read after The Better Angels of Our Nature?
A natural next read after The Better Angels of Our Nature is Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker. A kindred science read. Other strong choices are How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.
What books are similar to The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker?
The Better Angels of Our Nature centers on violence, history, human progress. Books with a similar feel include Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
