Understanding the World
1. 
Our Tribal Future: How to Channel Our Foundational Human Instincts into a Force for Good
by:
David R. Samson
4.16 avg rating — 111 ratings 2. 
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants 4.52 avg rating — 158,427 ratings
3. 
The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion - Surprising Observations of a Hidden World
by:
Peter Wohlleben
3.76 avg rating — 9,509 ratings 4. 
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by:
Jared Diamond
4.04 avg rating — 445,022 ratings 5. 
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
by:
Frans de Waal
3.97 avg rating — 16,185 ratings 
7. 
The Secret Network of Nature: The Delicate Balance of All Living Things
by:
Peter Wohlleben
4.05 avg rating — 6,881 ratings 8. 
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
by:
David Abram
4.17 avg rating — 5,286 ratings 9. 
14. 
At the Water's Edge: Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea
by:
Carl Zimmer
4.08 avg rating — 2,095 ratings 15. 
The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World
by:
Wade Davis
4.23 avg rating — 4,079 ratings 16. 
The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters
by:
Sean B. Carroll
4.08 avg rating — 1,675 ratings 17. 
Once & Future Giants: What Ice Age Extinctions Tell Us About the Fate of Earth's Largest Animals
by:
Sharon Levy
3.97 avg rating — 210 ratings 
20. 
Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity
by:
Brian Hare
4.03 avg rating — 1,619 ratings 21. 
The Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the World
by:
Nichola Raihani
3.93 avg rating — 618 ratings 22. 
Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century
by:
Charles King
4.26 avg rating — 2,337 ratings 22. 
Wild spirit: how a year in the African rainforest changed an Australian woman's life 3.90 avg rating — 41 ratings
22. 
25. 
25. 
The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era--A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos
by:
Brian Swimme
4.27 avg rating — 250 ratings 
31. 
The Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling and the Metamorphosis of Science
by:
Andreas Weber
4.08 avg rating — 100 ratings 
31. 
The Secret Life of Fungi: Discoveries From a Hidden World
by:
Aliya Whiteley
3.59 avg rating — 1,248 ratings 31. 
Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory
by:
Edward J. Larson
3.93 avg rating — 647 ratings 35. 
35. 
Light Rains Sometimes Fall: A British Year Through Japan's 72 Seasons
by:
Lev Parikian
4.24 avg rating — 192 ratings 38. 
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
by:
David Quammen
4.42 avg rating — 20,023 ratings 39. 
The Universe Is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story
by:
Brian Swimme
4.25 avg rating — 489 ratings 39. 
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
by:
Steve Silberman
4.29 avg rating — 17,215 ratings 
41. 
A Tear at the Edge of Creation: A Radical New Vision for Life in an Imperfect Universe
by:
Marcelo Gleiser
3.88 avg rating — 392 ratings 43. 
A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves
by:
Walter Álvarez
3.93 avg rating — 347 ratings 
46. 
Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire 4.20 avg rating — 208 ratings
50. 
Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America
by:
Paul S. Martin
3.90 avg rating — 209 ratings 
52. 
The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples
by:
Tim Flannery
4.09 avg rating — 922 ratings 52. 
The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World
by:
Lewis Hyde
3.91 avg rating — 3,110 ratings 52. 
The Tinkerer's Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself
by:
J. Scott Turner
4.19 avg rating — 37 ratings 
55. 
The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions
by:
Karen Armstrong
4.04 avg rating — 3,961 ratings 57. 
The Creative Process: Reflections on Invention in the Arts and Sciences 3.72 avg rating — 133 ratings
58. 
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
by:
Christopher Ryan
3.98 avg rating — 31,320 ratings 60. 
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
by:
Suzanne Simard
4.21 avg rating — 15,841 ratings 
62. 
Celestial Geometry: Understanding the Astronomical Meanings of Ancient Sites
by:
Ken Taylor
4.20 avg rating — 70 ratings 63. 
Shaping Humanity: How Science, Art, and Imagination Help Us Understand Our Origins
by:
John Gurche
4.22 avg rating — 45 ratings 63. 
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
by:
Charles C. Mann
4.05 avg rating — 93,177 ratings 65. 
67. 
The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life
by:
Nick Lane
4.18 avg rating — 5,766 ratings 68. 
The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions
by:
Peter Brannen
4.29 avg rating — 5,874 ratings 69. 
The Great Paleolithic War: How Science Forged an Understanding of America's Ice Age Past
by:
David J. Meltzer
4.25 avg rating — 4 ratings 69. 
Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons
by:
Silvia Federici
4.28 avg rating — 473 ratings 71. 
Lamarck's Revenge: How Epigenetics Is Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Evolution's Past and Present
by:
Peter D. Ward
3.28 avg rating — 96 ratings 71. 
Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior
by:
Elliott Sober
3.85 avg rating — 105 ratings 73. 
74. 
South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
by:
Imani Perry
3.97 avg rating — 7,598 ratings 76. 
Getting It, Then Getting Along: Understanding The World's Five Major Religions 3.90 avg rating — 10 ratings
76. 
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World
by:
Peter Wohlleben
4.07 avg rating — 84,758 ratings 78. 
The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and their Battle to Understand Human Conflict
by:
Michael Ruse
3.64 avg rating — 11 ratings 79. 
The Evolution Underground: Burrows, Bunkers, and the Marvelous Subterranean World Beneath our Feet 4.14 avg rating — 144 ratings
81. 
Our World Out Of Balance: Understanding Climate Change and What We Can Do
by:
Andrea Minoglio
4.45 avg rating — 42 ratings 81. 
Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something "Alive" and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It
by:
J. Scott Turner
3.74 avg rating — 88 ratings 83. 
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior
by:
Stefano Mancuso
4.11 avg rating — 2,550 ratings 83. 
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
by:
Ed Yong
4.18 avg rating — 30,336 ratings 85. 
Herding Hemingway's Cats: Understanding how our genes work
by:
Kat Arney
3.96 avg rating — 492 ratings 85. 
The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts
by:
Karen Armstrong
4.03 avg rating — 718 ratings 
88. 
Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding 4.13 avg rating — 639 ratings
89. 
The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy
by:
Murray Bookchin
4.17 avg rating — 826 ratings 89. 
The Ascent of Gravity: The Quest to Understand the Force that Explains Everything
by:
Marcus Chown
4.07 avg rating — 883 ratings 91. 
Understanding Physics: Volume 1: Motion, Sound and Heat
by:
Isaac Asimov
4.33 avg rating — 121 ratings 92. 
The Wakeful World: Animism, Mind and the Self in Nature
by:
Emma Restall Orr
4.18 avg rating — 97 ratings 
94. 
The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time 3.44 avg rating — 182 ratings
96. 
The Search for Why: A Revolutionary New Model for Understanding Others, Improving Communication, and Healing Division
by:
Bob Raleigh
3.79 avg rating — 24 ratings 96. 
99. 
The Natural Laws of Children: Why Children Thrive When We Understand How Their Brains Are Wired
by:
Céline Alvarez
4.36 avg rating — 541 ratings 100. 
Snowball Earth: The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life as We Know It
by:
Gabrielle Walker
3.99 avg rating — 415 ratings