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In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari uses concepts from biology, history, and economics to tell the story of us, Homo sapiens. We start 2.5 million years ago, when Sapiens make their historical entrance, and end in the future, when the creation of an artificially created superhuman race may mark the end of the Sapiens species. Along the way, we learn how our ability to create imagined realities led to our dominance over other species. We watch as the Agricultural Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, imperialism, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution change our species in lasting, and not always positive, ways.

Ultimately, we’re left with one question: As we design our future, who do we want to become? Asking the right questions may be more important than finding the right answers. Read this summary to explore our history as a species—in doing so, you’ll see today’s world in an entirely new way.

Conventional accounts of American history tend to focus on the people at the top—presidents, generals, CEOs, and other influential figures and their struggles, ambitions, hopes, and dreams. But what about average people? The ones who had to live with the consequences of elite decisions, and who often struggled in obscurity? In A People’s History of the United States, historian Howard Zinn aims to tell their story, providing a bottom-up view of American history focusing on Indigenous people, Black Americans, women, laborers, and activists.

Our guide outlines Zinn’s interpretation of significant events, themes, and historical trends in American history. Through our commentary, we’ll provide alternative opinions on the motivations behind and consequences of historical events. We’ll also further explain Zinn’s approach to history and provide additional context for his arguments as well as his perspective on events that happened after the book’s publication.

What causes economic inequality? How can we address it? In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, award-winning French economist Thomas Piketty analyzes national incomes, income tax returns, estate tax returns, and other financial data across multiple countries and centuries. The result is a groundbreaking study of the history of economic inequality and its implications for 21st-century society. Piketty argues that capitalism, by its nature, generates economic inequality because the rate of return on capital “r” has nearly always exceeded the rate of overall economic growth, “g.” In other words, r>g. Piketty identifies r>g as a fundamental economic law—and the key divergent and destabilizing force in capitalism.

In this guide, we’ll present Piketty’s ideas while also introducing commentary and analysis from other economists and writers who take a different view of inequality to provide a more balanced perspective.

The oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller was—and still is—the richest person in history. He made his fortune by founding the Standard Oil Company and growing it into a mind-bogglingly large multinational corporation. According to entrepreneur Verne Harnish, Rockefeller grew his company using simple fundamentals of business management that any leader can use to optimize their business and maintain organizational health during chaotic periods of growth.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to build your business around the three fundamental Rockefeller Habits: Focusing on a Purpose, Tracking Progress Objectively, and Conducting Effective Meetings. In addition, you’ll learn why knowing your business’s unique value is key to beating the competition and why you should create fun themes for your quarterly goals. In our commentary, we’ll supplement Harnish’s advice with other books on business leadership, such as The 4 Disciplines of Execution and Traction. We’ll also explore alternative perspectives from books like It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work and Competing Against Luck.

Published in 1969, Business Adventures is a collection of essays about the unpredictability of corporations and Wall Street—and the people behind them. Longtime New Yorker contributor John Brooks explores how businesses and economies can rise and fall based on people’s behavior, which is often driven by emotions, habits of thinking, and human tendencies. Brooks’s essays are so insightful and engaging that Microsoft’s Bill Gates has called Business Adventures the “best business book ever.”

In this guide, you’ll find out how human nature led to corporate scandals, stock market setbacks, and major events that shaped the financial world as we know it. As the book was published half a century ago, we also include updates and commentary about the lasting impact of these case studies and connect them to contemporary events and issues.

Have you noticed a shift in American politics throughout your lifetime? Over the past four decades, ideas like libertarianism and free market capitalism have gone from fringe beliefs held mostly by the elite to ideas with significant popular support and impact on our political sphere. In Dark Money, award-winning journalist and author Jane Mayer explores how a small group of extremely wealthy individuals, led largely by Charles and David Koch, have effectively legitimized far-right beliefs in America using their massive wealth.

In our guide, we’ll look at how the Kochs developed their political beliefs, the tactics they used to create their political movement, and how those tactics have affected American society and politics over recent decades. We’ll also examine the historical, social, and political contexts of the book’s events and how they have impacted society today.

Economics is the study of how we allocate resources—food, clothing, money, time, effort, and knowledge. Economists begin this study by examining incentives: the driving forces behind our decisions. By understanding how we respond to incentives and the psychological instincts that steer us, we can better understand how market forces work and how governments and firms can use incentives to foster a healthy economy.

In Naked Economics, bestselling author Charles Wheelan strips away the complexity from some of the most powerful theories in economics, allowing readers with little or no background in the subject to understand many of the field’s fundamental concepts. He concentrates on the logical pieces of how and why people behave in certain ways, how markets function, and how governments can design incentive systems that encourage healthy economies.

In his classic 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman argues that a society cannot maintain political freedom without a robust commitment to free-market capitalism—and that for capitalism to function best, it must be free of government interference. It is hard to overstate the extent to which Friedman’s once-controversial ideas have triumphed. Over the past 40 years, governments across the world have moved to market-based solutions by reducing marginal tax rates, eliminating tariffs, privatizing public monopolies, and introducing choice in public education. Some might disagree about the effects of Friedman’s ideas—but no one can deny their influence.

The field of economics is plagued by fallacies, which inevitably influence national policies that end up doing more harm than good. At the root of these fallacies is a tendency to consider only how economic policies will affect specific groups of people in the short term, while neglecting the long-term effects on other industries and consumers. Failure to consider the long-term, broad effects of policies leads the government to impose policies that sometimes exacerbate the problem they intend to solve.

In this often-cited book, Henry Hazlitt gives a clear, concise explanation of the secondary consequences of a range of economic policies—including rent control, inflation, and tariffs. In this summary, you’ll learn how labor-saving technology actually creates more jobs, why minimum wage laws increase unemployment and decrease collective wealth, and how saving money supports the economy more than spending it.

Most Americans see billionaires as neither good nor bad for the country, according to a survey. However, the number of people who have a negative view of the ultra wealthy is growing. While some argue that billionaires are good for the economy because they invest in businesses, create jobs, and support charitable causes, others contend that billionaires unfairly influence policy-making and create harm in their pursuit of profit.

In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari uses concepts from biology, history, and economics to tell the story of us, Homo sapiens. We start 2.5 million years ago, when Sapiens make their historical entrance, and end in the future, when the creation of an artificially created superhuman race may mark the end of the Sapiens species. Along the way, we learn how our ability to create imagined realities led to our dominance over other species. We watch as the Agricultural Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, imperialism, capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution change our species in lasting, and not always positive, ways.

Ultimately, we’re left with one question: As we design our future, who do we want to become? Asking the right questions may be more important than finding the right answers. Read this summary to explore our history as a species—in doing so, you’ll see today’s world in an entirely new way.

What causes economic inequality? How can we address it? In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, award-winning French economist Thomas Piketty analyzes national incomes, income tax returns, estate tax returns, and other financial data across multiple countries and centuries. The result is a groundbreaking study of the history of economic inequality and its implications for 21st-century society. Piketty argues that capitalism, by its nature, generates economic inequality because the rate of return on capital “r” has nearly always exceeded the rate of overall economic growth, “g.” In other words, r>g. Piketty identifies r>g as a fundamental economic law—and the key divergent and destabilizing force in capitalism.

In this guide, we’ll present Piketty’s ideas while also introducing commentary and analysis from other economists and writers who take a different view of inequality to provide a more balanced perspective.