Updates

  1. Person pages list letters, writing, profiles and links as sortable tables with filters, and show each person's companies as links; Fund letters show each letter's description in its own column.
  2. Experts show a checked job title and a short description of each person; 30 more people have photographs.
  3. Every company, fund, university and publication the experts work for has a page listing the people there.
  4. Fund letters show each letter's thesis and filter by it; 225 person pages list the essays, columns and newsletter issues the person wrote.
  5. Person pages list every essay and newsletter issue a person wrote, and their own books as a table in List view.
  6. Recommends shows the five largest kinds of book and the rest under More; browse pictures load sooner.
  7. Podcasts and talks link the original episode, filter by Audio and video or Press, and list each publisher once.
  8. Pages are wider, Recommends has List and Grid, and a filter clicked again turns off.
  9. Book cards sit in a ruled grid with Open Library and Goodreads links and each book's one-line note.
  10. Funds is now Investors; each investor's styles are buttons that filter the table.
  11. Podcasts and talks on a person's page filter by year and publisher and show as a list or a grid of pictures.
  12. Quotes show only people's own words: 472 summaries written by list sites are gone.
  13. Country pages open from Browse again, and every link on the shelf lands on a page.
  14. Subject and person pages show their sections as tabs, and each book appears once on a person's page.
  15. Book cards show the quote, who said it and the source; grids show five cards to a row.
  16. On a phone, a menu holds the sections, search, Updates, Feedback and dark mode.
  17. Feedback takes a screenshot of the page with no browser prompt, opens a screenshot full size when you click it, and clears itself once sent.
  18. Book cards are centred, search names the topic each book sits in, and any text cut short shows whole on hover.
  19. Search groups its results by kind: people, companies, geographies, subjects, topics, books, funds, fund letters and papers.
  20. The Books table lists who recommended each book by name, and the browser tab names the section you are in.
  21. Feedback can take a screenshot of the page, or one you paste or choose, and opens in the corner beside Updates.
  22. Each rail button reopens its section where you left it, and Browse, Table and People show on every book and subject page.
  23. Filters grey out choices that hold nothing instead of hiding them, and Books › People filters by authors or recommenders.
  24. Feedback takes a subject line and up to three screenshots.
  25. Biographies are grouped by the person they are about: 41 new pages, from Abraham Lincoln to Lee Kuan Yew.
  26. Sport splits into 23 sports, and Religion into one topic per faith.
  27. Book lists show as cards: the cover, one recommendation quote and every recommender by name.
  28. Seventeen subjects that had two or three pages under different names now have one page each.
  29. Every page lists its Experts as authors and recommenders, with a link to them on the Experts tab.
  30. Economics, Financial history, Financial panics and Accounting are subjects of their own, with one page per financial crisis.
  31. Book, person and subject pages open inside the app, so the tabs stay in view.
  32. 996 more book covers, and photographs or logos for 227 more people and companies.
  33. Books › Browse shows every subject as cards, and the rail holds Fund letters, Papers, Experts, Books and Funds.
  34. Every topic over 150 books splits into narrower topics, each with a page of its own.

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HO

History of ideas

Philosophy

Holds surveys of philosophy and intellectual history, from Russell's History of Western Philosophy to Sapiens and The Metaphysical Club.

Books 23Recommenders 62

Start here

  1. The MuqaddimahIbn Khaldun, 1858
  2. SapiensYuval Noah Harari, 2011
  3. The Lessons of HistoryWill Durant, Ariel Durant, 1968
  4. Guns, Germs, and SteelJared Diamond, 1997
  5. NonzeroRobert Wright, 2000
The MuqaddimahThe Muqaddimah
T1 The Muqaddimah
Ibn Khaldun · 1858
Open LibraryGoodreads

Why states rise and fall, explained through asabiyyah, the cohesion of a group.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Mark Zuckerberg

SapiensSapiens
T1 Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari · 2011
Open LibraryGoodreads

How shared fictions such as money, nations and gods let humans cooperate at scale.

“…books I've recommended, highlighted to death, or forced on friends.” — Andrew Wilkinson

Source: Andrew Wilkinson's Bookshelf, neverenough.com

Recommended by: Andrew Wilkinson, Bill Gates, Mohnish Pabrai and 38 others

The Lessons of HistoryThe Lessons of History
T2 The Lessons of History
Will Durant, Ariel Durant · 1968
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recurring patterns drawn from world history: biology, morals, religion, economics.

“…books I've recommended, highlighted to death, or forced on friends.” — Andrew Wilkinson

Source: Andrew Wilkinson's Bookshelf, neverenough.com

Recommended by: Andrew Wilkinson, Balaji S. Srinivasan and 12 others

Guns, Germs, and SteelGuns, Germs, and Steel
T3 Guns, Germs, and Steel
Jared Diamond · 1997
Open LibraryGoodreads

Diamond's central question — why did some civilizations come to dominate others over 10,000 years? — is precisely the kind of question that requires long-term thinking to even ask. The answer, rooted in geography and biology rather than culture or intelligence, is a model for how to reason about slow causes and fast effects.

“This is an insightful read on the pace at which societies develop and why.” — Christopher Bloomstran

Source: Semper Augustus 2023 Letter to Clients, 'Worldly Wisdom', p. 81

Recommended by: Charlie Munger, Christopher Bloomstran and 14 others

NonzeroNonzero
T3 Nonzero
Robert Wright · 2000
Open LibraryGoodreads

History read as an expanding series of non-zero-sum games

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Ev Williams, Nick Thompson and 1 other

The Dream of ReasonThe Dream of Reason
T3 The Dream of Reason
Anthony Gottlieb · 2000
Open LibraryGoodreads

History of Western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Story of PhilosophyThe Story of Philosophy
T4 The Story of Philosophy
Will Durant · 1926
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Nat Eliason, Naval Ravikant

The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers
T4 The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers
Carl Lotus Becker · 1932
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Patrick Collison

The Role of the Individual in HistoryThe Role of the Individual in History
T4 The Role of the Individual in History
Georgi Plekhanov · 1940
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Ray Dalio

A History of Western Philosophy; And its ConA History of Western Philosophy; And its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
T4 A History of Western Philosophy; And its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Bertrand Russell · 1945
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Patrick Collison

The Discovery of the MindThe Discovery of the Mind
T4 The Discovery of the Mind
Bruno Snell · 1953
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Tim O’Reilly

Fly and the Fly-Bottle: Encounters with BritFly and the Fly-Bottle: Encounters with British Intellectuals
T4 Fly and the Fly-Bottle: Encounters with British Intellectuals
Ved Mehta · 1962
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Patrick Collison

Ordeal of Civility: Freud, Marx, Levi-StrausOrdeal of Civility: Freud, Marx, Levi-Strauss, and the Jewish Struggle With Modernity
T4 Ordeal of Civility: Freud, Marx, Levi-Strauss, and the Jewish Struggle With Modernity
John Murray Cuddihy · 1974
Open LibraryGoodreads

Freud, Marx and Lévi-Strauss as cases of the Jewish struggle with Gentile civility.

Recommended by: Marc Andreessen

The Domestication of the Savage MindThe Domestication of the Savage Mind
T4 The Domestication of the Savage Mind
Jack Goody · 1977
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Bret Victor

IntellectualsIntellectuals
T4 Intellectuals
Paul Johnson · 1988
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Marc Andreessen

Intellectuals in the Middle AgesIntellectuals in the Middle Ages
T4 Intellectuals in the Middle Ages
Jacques Le Goff · 1992
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Great BooksGreat Books
T4 Great Books
David Denby · 1996
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai

The Educated MindThe Educated Mind
T4 The Educated Mind
Kieran Egan · 1997
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Patrick Collison

The Idea of Decline in Western HistoryThe Idea of Decline in Western History
T4 The Idea of Decline in Western History
Arthur Herman · 1997
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Stewart Brand

The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in AThe Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
T4 The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
Louis Menand · 2001
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai

Existential AmericaExistential America
T4 Existential America
George Cotkin · 2005
Open LibraryGoodreads

Recommended by: Patrick Collison

Lost Time
T4 Lost Time
Jozef Czapski
Goodreads

Recommended by: Susan J. Fowler

The Philosophy BookThe Philosophy Book
T4 The Philosophy Book
Goodreads

Recommended by: Patrick Collison

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