Books like Understanding Media

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.

02

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.

03

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

James Gleick · Science

The Information traces the history of information — as a concept, a technology, and a way of understanding the universe — from the talking drums of West Africa through the telegraph, the printing press, the telephone, and into the digital age.

04

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

Shoshana Zuboff · History

Shoshana Zuboff spent years researching what she calls surveillance capitalism — a new economic logic in which human experience is turned into raw material for prediction products that are sold to businesses wanting to influence behavior.

05

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.

06

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Yuval Noah Harari · Philosophy

Where Sapiens traced humanity's past and Homo Deus speculated about its future, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century plants itself in the present.