art & CULTURE
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
#1 New York Times Bestseller • New York Times Readers’ Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century • The Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama and Bill Gates
From early hominids to modern societies, Sapiens offers a sweeping overview of human history. Exploring key developments in cognition, agriculture, and technology, Yuval Noah Harari examines how Homo sapiens came to dominate the planet.
Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings by Neil Price
A “thrilling” (Wall Street Journal) history of the Vikings by pre-eminent scholar, Neil Price, "Children of Ash and Elm" tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology and religion, their material world. Known today for a stereotype of maritime violence, the Vikings exported new ideas, technologies, and beliefs to the lands and peoples they encountered.
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
In his bestselling book, 1491, Charles C. Mann challenges the idea of pre-Columbian America as a sparsely populated wilderness. Instead, he reveals that advanced indigenous societies are actively shaping their world. The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, with its running water and clean streets, was larger than any European city of its time. Mann’s work offers a transformative perspective on the innovation and influence of the Americas before Columbus.