Stewart Brand Book Recommendations

A History of Civilizations

by Fernand Braudel

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Way Life Works

The Science Lover's Illustrated Guide to How Life Grows, Develops, Reproduces, and Gets Along

by Mahlon Hoagland

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Finite and Infinite Games

by James Carse

"A fundamental interest is gamification – thinking of things in game terms and designing things in gaming terms is one of the profound things that civilization has done for a very long time." - Stewart Brand (Source)

Dune (6 books)

Stewart Brand recommended this series on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Pattern On The Stone

The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work

by Danny Hillis

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

A Pattern Language

Towns, Buildings, Construction

by Christopher Alexander

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Imagined Worlds

by Freeman Dyson

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Culture (10 books)

Stewart Brand recommended this series on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Turing's Cathedral

The Origins of the Digital Universe

by George Dyson

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Map Book

by Peter Barber

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Homo Ludens

A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

by Johan Huizinga

"Games are basically what we do." - Stewart Brand (Source)

Foundation (7 books)

Stewart Brand recommended this series on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Long Summer

How Climate Changed Civilization

by Brian Fagan

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Scale

The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies

by Geoffrey West

"Particularly fantastic." - Stewart Brand (Source)

The Better Angels of Our Nature

Why Violence Has Declined

by Steven Pinker

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Medieval Civilization

400-1500

by Jacques Le Goff

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Thinking, Fast and Slow

by Daniel Kahneman

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Art of the Long View

Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World

by Peter Schwartz

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Tao Te Ching

by Lao Tzu

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Coming Population Crash

and Our Planet's Surprising Future

by Fred Pearce

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Oxford Shakespeare

The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Future of Life

by Edward O. Wilson

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Time Travel

A History

by James Gleick

"Some of the most cogent thinking about time that I think we’ve seen in a long time." - Stewart Brand (Source)

The Gift

Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property

by Lewis Hyde

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Sleepwalkers

A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe

by Arthur Koestler

Stewart Brand mentioned this book on "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast. (Source)

What Technology Wants

by Kevin Kelly

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Powers of Ten

About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe

by Philip Morrison

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Conceptual Physics

by Paul G. Hewitt

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Across Realtime

Across Realtime, Book 3

by Vernor Vinge

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Thinking in Time

The Uses of History for Decision-Makers

by Richard E. Neustadt

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Triumph of the City

How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier

by Edward Glaeser

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Infinite in All Directions

by Freeman J. Dyson

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Eternal Frontier

An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples

by Tim Flannery

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Prince

by Niccolò Machiavelli

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The King and the Corpse

Tales of the Soul's Conquest of Evil

by Heinrich Zimmer

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Landmark Thucydides

by Thucydides

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Venice

A Maritime Republic

by Frederic C. Lane

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Adventures of a Bystander

by Peter F. Drucker

"[The author]'s early memoir." - Stewart Brand (Source)

A History of the World in 100 Objects

by Neil MacGregor

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Meditations

by Marcus Aurelius

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

A Short History of Nearly Everything

by Bill Bryson

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Governing the Commons

The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action

by Elinor Ostrom

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Beowulf

by Seamus Heaney

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Why the West Rules--for Now

The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

by Ian Morris

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

On the Nature of Things

by Lucretius

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Story of Writing

Alphabets, Hieroglyphs & Pictograms

by Andrew Robinson

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Dirt

The Erosion of Civilizations

by David R. Montgomery

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Grand Design

The Earth from Above

by Georg Gerster

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Star Maker

by Olaf Stapledon

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Singularity Is Near

When Humans Transcend Biology

by Ray Kurzweil

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Rise of the West

A History of the Human Community; with a Retrospective Essay

by William H. McNeill

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Western Canon

The Books and School of the Ages

by Harold Bloom

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Gaia

A New Look at Life on Earth

by James Lovelock

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Idea of Decline in Western History

by Arthur Herman

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Machines of Loving Grace

The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots

by John Markoff

"Basically spells out the ongoing debate between artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation – I.A. and A.I." - Stewart Brand (Source)

Guns, Germs, and Steel

The Fates of Human Societies

by Jared Diamond

"The main [book by this author]." - Stewart Brand (Source)

The Merck Manual Home Health Handbook

by Robert Porter

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Past From Above

Aerial Photographs of Archaeological Sites

by Charlotte Trümpler

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Collapse

How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

by Jared Diamond

"Has some interesting stuff to propose." - Stewart Brand (Source)

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

by Edward Gibbon

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Water Will Come

Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World

by Jeff Goodell

"Do read." - Stewart Brand (Source)

Connectography

Mapping the Future of Global Civilization

by Parag Khanna

"About humanity's infrastructure." - Stewart Brand (Source)

The Civilization of the Middle Ages

A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, the Life and Death of a Civilization

by Norman F. Cantor

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Learning to Breathe Fire

The Rise of CrossFit and the Primal Future of Fitness

by J.C. Herz

"Tells the story of how CrossFit came about." - Stewart Brand (Source)

Our Bodies, Ourselves

A Book by and for Women

by Boston Women's Health Book Collective

"Wonderful book by women on women’s health." - Stewart Brand (Source)

The Good Ancestor

How to Think Long-Term in a Short-Term World

by Roman Krznaric

"A very good book." - Stewart Brand (Source)

The Elements

A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe

by Theodore Gray

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Memory of the World

The Treasures that Record Our History from 1700 BC to the Present Day

by UNESCO

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

Military Misfortunes

The Anatomy of Failure in War

by Eliot A. Cohen

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

One True God

Historical Consequences of Monotheism

by Rodney Stark

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Causes of War

by Geoffrey Blainey

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Odyssey

by Homer

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

by Samuel P. Huntington

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Complete Greek Tragedies

4 Volumes

by David Grene

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Complete Guide to Trail Building and Maintenance

by Carl Demrow

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Discoverers

A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself

by Daniel J. Boorstin

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Encyclopedia of Earth

A Complete Visual Guide

by Michael Allaby

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Epic of Gilgamesh

by Anonymous

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Iliad

by Homer

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)

The Landmark Herodotus

The Histories

by Herodotus

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post. (Source)