Books like 'A Short History of Progress'
Readers who enjoyed A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical psychological politics technology evolution outdoors pollution-climate-change high-school university human-nature
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An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn An Enemy of the People, Ibsen places his main characters, Dr. Thomas Stockman, in the role of an enlightened and persecuted minority of one confronting an ignorant, powerful majority. When the physician learns that the famous and financially successful baths in his hometown are contaminated, he insists they be shut down for expensive repairs... -
![Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Carlos Manuel Vesga]()
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Carlos Manuel Vesga
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 55 ratings100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens...Categorized as:
archaeology evolution human-nature outdoors politics social-commentary technology university -
![A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future by David Attenborough]()
A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future by David Attenborough
Rated: 4.54 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSee the world. Then make it better.I am David Attenborough. At time of writing, I am 93 years old. I've had an extraordinary life. It's only now that I appreciate how extraordinary. As a young man, I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world - but it was an illusion...Categorized as:
evolution outdoors politics pollution-climate-change 21st-century animals audiobook contemporary -
![The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green]()
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsA deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John GreenThe Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity... -
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![Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Annemie de Vries]()
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Annemie de Vries
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsFactfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong... -
![The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee]()
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsSpanning the globe and several centuries, The Gene is the story of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans, that governs our form and function.The story of the gene begins in an obscure Augustinian abbey in Moravia in 1856, where a monk stumbles on the idea of a ‘unit of heredity’...Categorized as:
evolution outdoors politics technology 21st-century audiobook historical male-author -
![Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith]()
Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the vantage point of the colonized, the term 'research' is inextricably linked with European colonialism; the ways in which scientific research has been implicated in the worst excesses of imperialism remains a powerful remembered history for many of the world's colonized peoples. Here, an indigenous researcher issues a clarion call for the decolonization of research methods... -
![Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman]()
Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFrom the author of Utopia For Realists, a revolutionary argument that the innate goodness and cooperation of human beings has been the greatest factor in our successIf one basic principle has served as the bedrock of bestselling author Rutger Bregman's thinking, it is that every progressive idea -- whether it was the abolition of slavery, the advent of democracy, women's suffrage, or the...Categorized as:
evolution human-nature outdoors politics social-commentary 21st-century audiobook contemporary -
![Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman]()
Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFrom the author of Utopia For Realists, a revolutionary argument that the innate goodness and cooperation of human beings has been the greatest factor in our success...Categorized as:
human-nature outdoors politics social-commentary 21st-century audiobook contemporary fiction -
![Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell]()
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 52 ratingsLearn what sets high achievers apart -- from Bill Gates to the Beatles -- in this #1 bestseller from "a singular talent" (New York Times Book Review).In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful...Categorized as:
high-school human-nature politics social-commentary technology university 21st-century audiobook -
![The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs]()
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured...Categorized as:
politics social-commentary university 20th-century audiobook classics female-author fiction -
![Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium by Carl Sagan]()
Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium by Carl Sagan
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsIn the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us...Categorized as:
evolution outdoors politics pollution-climate-change technology 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari]()
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsYuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war...Categorized as:
evolution human-nature outdoors politics social-commentary technology 21st-century adult -
![An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal]()
An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA New York Times bestseller/Washington Post Notable Book of 2017/NPR Best Books of 2017/Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2017 "This book will serve as the definitive guide to the past and future of health care in America...Categorized as:
politics social-commentary audiobook historical journalism medical mental-illness non-fiction -
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![You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America by Paul Kix]()
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America by Paul Kix
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom journalist Paul Kix, the riveting story, never before fully told, of the 1963 Birmingham Campaign―ten weeks that would shape the course of the Civil Rights Movement and the future of America.It’s one of the iconic photographs of American A Black teenager, a policeman and his lunging German Shepherd. Birmingham, Alabama, May of 1963... -
![Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon]()
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsTHE REAL ORIGIN OF OUR SPECIES: a myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is, how it came to be, and how this evolution still shapes all our lives todayHow did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution? • Why do women live longer than men? • Why are women more likely to get... -
![Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol]()
Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNational Book Award-winning author Jonathan Kozol presents his shocking account of the American educational system in this stunning "New York Times" bestseller, which has sold more than 250,000 hardcover copies."An impassioned book, laced with anger and indignation, about how our public education system scorns so many of our children...Categorized as:
high-school politics social-commentary university 20th-century audiobook children contemporary -
![Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama]()
Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe second volume of the bestselling landmark work on the history of the modern stateWriting in The Wall Street Journal, David Gress called Francis Fukuyama's Origins of Political Order "magisterial in its learning and admirably immodest in its ambition...Categorized as:
politics social-commentary audiobook historical non-fiction philosophy psychological religion -
![A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen W. Hawking, Ron Miller]()
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen W. Hawking, Ron Miller
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 71 ratingsStephen Hawking is one of the world's leading cosmologists and is widely regarded as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein. Although he has been widely published within his specialized field, A Brief History of Time is the first work he has written for the non-mathematical layman...Categorized as:
evolution high-school outdoors politics technology university 20th-century action-adventure -
![Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion]()
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsThe first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains, decades after its first publication, the essential portrait of America—particularly California—in the sixties...Categorized as:
high-school politics social-commentary university 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook -
![21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari]()
21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsIn Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet turns to the present to make sense of today's most pressing issues... -
![Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker]()
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIf you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science...Categorized as:
evolution politics social-commentary technology 21st-century audiobook contemporary historical -
![The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff]()
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratings'Excellent, their advice is sound . . . liberal parents, in particular, should read it' Financial TimesThe New York Times bestsellerWhat doesn't kill you makes you weakerAlways trust your feelingsLife is a battle between good people and evil peopleThese three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being, as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures...Categorized as:
politics social-commentary technology university 21st-century audiobook children contemporary -
![The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century by Louise Perry]()
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century by Louise Perry
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDitching the stuffy hang-ups and benighted sexual traditionalism of the past is an unambiguously positive thing.The sexual revolution has liberated us to enjoy a heady mixture of erotic freedom and personal autonomy.Right? Wrong, argues Louise Perry in her provocative new book...Categorized as:
politics social-commentary non-fiction feminism psychological philosophy audiobook contemporary -
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![Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World by Srdja Popovic, Matthew Miller]()
Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World by Srdja Popovic, Matthew Miller
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn urgent and accessible handbook for peaceful protesters, activists, and community organizers—anyone trying to defend their rights, hold their government accountable, or change the worldBlueprint for Revolution will teach you how to• make oppression backfire by playing your opponents’ strongest card against them• identify the “almighty pillars of power” in order to shift the balance of control•...Categorized as:
politics social-commentary non-fiction philosophy revolution communism war psychological -
![The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins]()
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsInheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene... -
![Allegory of the Cave by Plato, Benjamin Jowett]()
Allegory of the Cave by Plato, Benjamin Jowett
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Allegory of the Cave...Categorized as:
high-school politics university ancient-civilization audiobook classics fiction historical -
![The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann]()
The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the best-selling, award-winning author of 1491 and 1493--an incisive portrait of the two little-known twentieth-century scientists, Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, whose diametrically opposed views shaped our ideas about the environment, laying the groundwork for how people in the twenty-first century will choose to live in tomorrow's world...Categorized as:
outdoors politics pollution-climate-change technology 20th-century audiobook culinary expert -
![The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel E. Lieberman, Luís Oliveira Santos]()
The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel E. Lieberman, Luís Oliveira Santos
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA landmark book of popular science—a lucid, engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years and of how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and the modern world is fueling the paradox of greater longevity but more chronic disease... -
![The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt, Elizabeth Wiley]()
The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt, Elizabeth Wiley
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA work of striking originality bursting with unexpected insights, The Human Condition is a in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable...Categorized as:
human-nature politics social-commentary university 20th-century audiobook classics existentialism
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