Library
The Working Origins library has five sections that answer the basic questions of how did we come to work as we do?
Human Origins
Human Biology and Behavior
Ancient & Classical People & History
European People & History
United States People & History
We each shape our own library and interests, and walk our own path. I’d expect my friends in India or Poland to build a different library than my own.
Many of these works may seem dated - with publication dates of 2016 or much, much earlier. I include them because they were once, and many remain, influential to our thinking.
Human Origins
Charles Darwin
On the Origin of Species (1859 first published). Such a classic. Well written, presenting ideas that upended most conventional thinking of the time. And remains remarkable prescient of ideas to come.
The Descent of Man (1871 first published). Here he extended his earlier work to include humans
Richard Leakey
The Making of Mankind (1981). A grounded account of early Homo, including Homo habilis.
Robin Dunbar
How Many Friends Does One Person Need? (2010). For insight into the social limits and structures that shape human groups.
David Reich
Who We Are and How We Got Here (2018). Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. This was significant - not just because of his background and research - but because of his comprehensive summary of DNA-based findings at the time, and the underlying science.
Svante Pääbo
Neanderthal Man (2014). In personal story form, Pääbo describes the growth and applications of DNA science to our human beginnings, with specific application to our human cousins the Neanderthals. Excellent and engaging detail on the science itself.
Steven Mithen
The Prehistory of the Mind (1996). This book remains influential in framing the emergence of cognitive fluidity.
The Singing Neanderthals (2005). Proposes a “musilanguage” stage preceding fully symbolic speech
The Language Puzzle (2024). Piecing together the six-million-year story of how words evolved. Mithen very nicely describes a behavioral timeline that accompanies the development of language. Very influential to my own thinking.
Frederick L. Coolidge and Thomas Wynn
The Rise of Homo Sapiens (2018). Thoroughly maps out a timeline of modern thinking over time, across hominin groups, with clear linkage to biological (neural) foundations.
David W. Anthony
The Horse the Wheel and Language (2007). How bronze-age riders from the eurasian steppes shaped the modern world.
Barry Cunliffe
By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean (2015). Describes the human paths over 10,000 years that created a globalized Eurasia.
Jennifer Raff
Origin, A Genetic History of the Americas (2022). A story of genetics as applied to the peopling of the Americas, with a strong sensibility to cultural impact.
Adam Rutherford
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived (2017). Engagingly introduces DNA as the means by which we tell our human past, with specific application to Eurasia and the Americas.
Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind (2016). An influential and widely read account of how humans spread throughout the world. Harari refreshingly reveals his own personality and opinions.
E. Fuller Torrey
Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods (2019). Very influential to my own understanding of how human behaviors evolved, and the co-adaptations of neural regions and cultures. Torrey nicely describes the sequential adaptions of neural regions over 3 million years.
Steven L. Kuhn
The Evolution of Paleolithic Technologies (2021). Toolmaking is at the very heart of what it is to be human.
April Nowell and Iain Davidson
Stone Tools - and the Evolution of Human Cognition (2010). Reviews the evidence for toolmaking as the source of cognition and the evolution of the human mind.
Steve Stewart-Williams
The Ape that Understood the Universe - How the Mind and Culture Evolve (2018). Engaging, but too aware of today’s cultural battles for my taste.
Michael C. Corballis
From Hand to Mouth (2006). Argues for gestural origins of language.
Terrence Deacon
The Symbolic Species (1997). Links brain evolution to symbolic capacity
W. Tecumseh Fitch
Language Evolution (2010). Offers a comprehensive synthesis across disciplines.
Noam Chomsky, Marc Hauser, and W. Tecumseh Fitch
The Faculty of Language (2002). Distinguishes core language capacity from broader cognitive systems.
Charles River Editors
Homo Erectus: The History of the Archaic Humans Who Left Africa (2018). Describes a history of how these archaic hominins spread well beyond Africa, including biological and cultural adaptations such as the control of fire.
Homo Habilis: Archaic Humans and Their Use of Stone Tools (2021). Traces the genetics, anatomy, behaviors, and tools of our first human ancestor.
These two books focus on the domestication of plants and animals, which remains one of the watershed events of human origins. Both are fascinating and highly recommended.
Alice Roberts
Tamed - Ten Species That Changed Our World (2017). She tells the story of dogs, what, cattle, maize, potatoes, chickens, rice, horses, and apples.
Richard C. Francis
Domesticated - Evolution in a Man-Made World (2015). Articulates the many facets of domestication, such as epigenetics and the domestication syndrome.
Human Biology and Behavior
Edward O. Wilson
On Human Nature (2004). A classic and very influential introduction to sociobiology. Originally published in 1978.
Jonathan Haidt
The Righteous Mind (2012). Loved the elephant and the rider story. Powerful.
The Coddling of the American Mind (2018). Three great untruths in youth culture.
The Anxious Generation (2024). Smartphone impact on childhood.
Steven Pinker
The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011). Very nice review of declining violence from prehistory to the present - and extracting lessons for today.
The Language Instinct (1994). Pinker’s breakout, with excellent insight to the biological foundations of language and cognitive science.
How the Mind Works (1997). Biological foundations of cognitive science.
Iain McGilchrist
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (2019). With the benefit of interdisciplinary diligence, McGilchrist presents the structure of the human brain as balancing the needs of the rational (left side) and the meaningful (right side).
Richard Dawkins
The Selfish Gene (1976). Classic in evolutionary biology. Reframes Charles Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” to “survival of the gene.”
Robert M. Sapolsky
Behave (2017). Traces today’s behaviors backward to childhood, culture, and evolutionary biology. On Youtube, Sapolsky’s lecture series “Human Behavioral Biology” is excellent.
Lisa Feldman Barrett
How Emotions Are Made (2017). LOVED her gross-out birthday party story! Delightful fact-based unpacking of emotions, overturning many long-held assumptions.
Ralph Adolphus and David J. Anderson
The Neuroscience of Emotion (2018). Nicely focuses on emotions apart from other motivations, states, and drives.
David J. Anderson
The Nature of the Beast (2022). Uses comparative animal studies to describe how emotions guide us.
Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending
The 10,000 Year Explosion (2009). How civilization accelerated evolution. We rapidly continue to evolve biologically and culturally.
Joseph Henrich
The Secret of Our Success (2016). How culture is driving human evolution.
Allen W. Johnson and Timothy Earle
The Evolution of Human Societies (2000). From foraging group to agrarian state.
Joseph A. Tainter
The Collapse of Complex Societies (1990). Reviews roughly 20 different cases of societal collapse over 2000 years.
Note that the following two books give us insight to our mammalian biological inheritance - which is most of what we are.
Neil Shubin
Your Inner Fish (2009). A journey into the 3.5-billion-year history of the human body. Very readable and interesting.
Steve Brusatte
The Rise and Reign of the Mammals (2022). As above, very readable story of how our bodies - jaws, arms, lungs, brains, etc. - came to be.
These books are simple compendiums of incredible survival stories and advice. I keep them in the ‘Biology and Behavior’ section.
Laurence Gonzales
Deep Survival - Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why (2017). From social shame in a burning airline cabin to a tightly-coupled system on a Mount Rainier glacier.
Ben Sherwood
The Survivors Club - The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life (2009). Covers the central park jogger to John McCain’s time as a POW in Vietnam.
Joan Druett
Island of the Lost (2025). An examination of two contrasting groups of castaways and leadership.
Gavin de Becker
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence (1997). Widely read and speaking to women and others that are disproportionately the victims of violence, de Becker argues that fear is a highly evolved survival signal—one that, when properly understood and trusted, helps us recognize and respond to real threats before conscious reasoning catches up.
Ancient & Classical People & History
These may be considered as foundational texts to major civilizations.
The Bible (King James Version) (1611) — A canonical English translation of ancient Hebrew and Greek texts, foundational to Western moral, legal, and cultural traditions.
The Rig Veda (c. 1500–1200 BCE) — One of the oldest known sacred texts, composed in early Sanskrit, reflecting the religious, poetic, and social foundations of early Indo-Aryan culture.
The Code of Hammurabi (c. 1754 BCE) — A Babylonian legal code attributed to Hammurabi, offering one of the earliest structured systems of law and social order.
The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100–1200 BCE) — An ancient Mesopotamian epic poem exploring mortality, friendship, and kingship, among the earliest surviving works of literature.
The Analects (c. 475–221 BCE) by Confucius — A collection of teachings and dialogues that shaped Chinese thought on ethics, governance, social roles, and education for over two millennia.
Tao Te Ching (c. 4th century BCE) by Laozi — A foundational text of Daoism emphasizing natural order, balance, and non-coercive action.
The Art of War (c. 5th century BCE) by Sun Tzu — A classic on strategy and leadership, extending beyond warfare into governance and decision-making.
These are podcast, audiobook, or video recommendations. Each is very highly recommended.
The History of Byzantium (Podcast) by Robin Pierson — A detailed continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire, tracing how Byzantine institutions preserved and adapted classical traditions over a thousand years.
The History of Rome (Podcast) by Mike Duncan — A clear and engaging narrative of Rome’s rise, governance, and decline, widely regarded as one of the most accessible introductions to Roman history.
The History of the Ancient World (Podcast) by Susan Wise Bauer — An audio companion series that presents ancient history in structured, narrative form suitable for incremental learning.
The History of the Ancient World (Video Lectures) by Susan Wise Bauer — Lecture-style presentations that mirror her written work, reinforcing timelines and key developments through visual explanation.
Fall of Civilizations (YouTube Series) by Paul Cooper — Long-form documentary videos examining the collapse of past societies through environmental, cultural, and political lenses.
Fall of Civilizations (Podcast) by Paul Cooper — An immersive audio series exploring how complex societies rise and fall, with emphasis on lived experience and systemic fragility.
These are my own recommended books for understanding the ancient and classical worlds.
Philip Matyszak
Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World (2006) — A readable survey of lesser-known civilizations that broadens our view beyond the dominant Greek and Roman narratives.
Robin Lane Fox
The Classical World (2005) — A sweeping account of Greek and Roman history that connects political events with cultural and intellectual life.
Alexander the Great (1973) — A detailed and influential biography that situates Alexander within both Macedonian politics and broader ancient world dynamics.
Paul Johnson
A History of the Jews (1987) — A long-range narrative tracing Jewish history and its enduring influence on religion, law, and identity.
James Carroll
Constantine’s Sword (2001) — An examination of the historical relationship between Christianity and Judaism, with emphasis on the legacy of Constantine the Great.
Susan Wise Bauer
A History of the Ancient World (2007) — A chronological narrative from the earliest civilizations through Rome, designed to make complex ancient history accessible to general readers.
A History of the Classical World (2010) — A continuation focusing on Greece and Rome, emphasizing continuity between political events and cultural development.
Mary Beard
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (2015) — A highly accessible and engaging introduction to Roman history, blending scholarship with clear storytelling.
Peter Frankopan
The Silk Roads (2015) — Reorients ancient and classical history around interconnected trade networks linking East and West.
Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) — Very widely read and influential, even if a bit dated almost thirty years later. It is a broad, accessible framework explaining how geography and environment shaped the development of early civilizations.
Eric H. Cline
1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed (2021) — Cline details the Bronze Age Collapse, a long and ancient puzzle to historians, giving accounts of the many complex circumstances that led to the destruction of the late Bronze Age civilizations and the rise of modern writing (linear script B), modern religions, and the classical civilizations of Greece, Rome, Persia, and others.
John McWhorter
The Story of Human Language (2013) — Presents the development of modern languages from a single language of 150,000 years ago, to an estimated 6,000 languages in use around the world today.