Science · Similar reads
Books like Whole Earth Discipline
The best books like Whole Earth Discipline are Enlightenment Now, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World, and The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand is about environmentalism, nuclear energy, urbanization. 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
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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 → - Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World
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Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World
Hans Rosling · Economics
Hans Rosling spent decades testing audiences of students, professors, journalists, and politicians on basic facts about global development — child mortality rates, literacy, extreme poverty, life expectancy — and found consistently that even well-educated, well-intentioned people performed worse than chance.
A kindred science read.
Read the summary → - The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
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The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
Matt Ridley · Economics
Matt Ridley's argument in The Rational Optimist is evolutionary in the literal sense: he treats the expansion of human prosperity as the result of a Darwinian process operating at the cultural level, where ideas combine, compete, and recombine to produce innovations that raise living standards.
A kindred science read.
Read the summary → - A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
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A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg · Science
A Crack in Creation is Jennifer Doudna and Samuel Sternberg's account of how CRISPR-Cas9 works, what it can do, and why its possibilities should give everyone pause.
A kindred science read.
Read the summary → - The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World
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The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World
Amanda Little · Science
The Fate of Food is Amanda Little's reporting on how food production is being reshaped by climate change and by the technologies that farmers, scientists, and food companies are deploying to respond.
Both dig into climate change.
Read the summary → - A World Without Ice
06
Henry Pollack · Science
Henry Pollack is a geophysicist at the University of Michigan who spent decades studying the Earth's heat flow and was a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Both dig into climate change.
Read the summary → - How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
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How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Bill Gates · Science
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is Bill Gates's attempt to explain the scale of the climate problem and outline what it would actually take to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Both dig into climate change.
Read the summary → - Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To
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Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To
David A. Sinclair · Science
Lifespan opens with a bold claim: aging is not an inevitable feature of biology but a disease — one that can be treated, slowed, and possibly reversed.
Both dig into biotechnology.
Read the summary → - The Ageless Generation: How Advances in Biomedicine Will Transform the Global Economy
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The Ageless Generation: How Advances in Biomedicine Will Transform the Global Economy
Alex Zhavoronkov · Science
Alex Zhavoronkov's argument in The Ageless Generation is straightforward but sweeping: advances in regenerative medicine, genomics, and AI-driven drug discovery are converging in ways that will significantly extend healthy human lifespan within the next few decades, and the economic and social systems of every developed nation are entirely unprepared for that outcome.
Both dig into biotechnology.
Read the summary → - The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
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The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
Elizabeth Kolbert · Science
The Sixth Extinction is Elizabeth Kolbert's account of the mass extinction event currently underway — the sixth in Earth's history, and the first caused by a single species.
Both dig into climate change.
Read the summary → - The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
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The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
David Wallace-Wells · Science
The Uninhabitable Earth is David Wallace-Wells's catalog of what climate change will do to human civilization if carbon emissions continue on or near their current trajectory.
Both dig into climate change.
Read the summary → - The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World
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The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World
Jeff Goodell · Science
Jeff Goodell spent years traveling to the places most threatened by rising seas — Miami, Rotterdam, Lagos, Dhaka, Venice, the Marshall Islands — and The Water Will Come is the result of that reporting.
Both dig into climate change.
Read the summary →
Books like Whole Earth Discipline: quick answers
What are the best books like Whole Earth Discipline?
The best books like Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand are Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World by Hans Rosling, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley, A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg, The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World by Amanda Little, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Whole Earth Discipline, such as environmentalism, nuclear energy, urbanization.
What should I read after Whole Earth Discipline?
A natural next read after Whole Earth Discipline is Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker. A kindred science read. Other strong choices are Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World by Hans Rosling, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley, A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg.
What books are similar to Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand?
Whole Earth Discipline centers on environmentalism, nuclear energy, urbanization. Books with a similar feel include Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World by Hans Rosling, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley, A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg, The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World by Amanda Little, A World Without Ice by Henry Pollack — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
