Short Humanity

“Thrilling . . . a bracing summary of what we have learned [from] ‘archaeogenetics’—the study of ancient DNA . . . Krause and Trappe capture the excitement of this young field.”—Kyle Harper, The Wall Street Journal Johannes Krause is the director of the Max Planck Institute for...

“If you read just one book about economics, make it Andrew Leigh's clear, insightful, and remarkable (and short) work.” —Claudia Goldin, recipient of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics and Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University A sweeping, engrossing history of how economic...

Brought to you by Penguin. Humanity has often found itself on the precipice. We've survived and thrived because we've never stopped moving... In this eye-opening book, Johannes Krause, Chair of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Humanity, offers a new way of understanding our past...

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR An unsettling masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will impact us all. “The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem, New York Times...

For generations, a family has lived with Death in their library. An old lighthouse keeper picks through the Beach, where all things forgotten wash up. A young girl discovers the stars are going out, one by one.

Heaven and hell are at war, with Earth as their battleground. For time immemorial, humans have been their playthings. But not anymore. I was just a regular guy until I tapped into the primordial power of humanity known as the Archon System. Now, I have powers humans were always meant to have.

"Henry Gee presents a pithy, fascinating account of the stages of biological evolution. ... a meditative and friendly listening experience. —AudioFile on A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth Written and read by the award-winning author of A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: a history...

The Nuremberg trials almost didn't happen. Churchill wanted the Nazi leaders shot. Stalin wanted show trials. The decision to hold genuine legal proceedings — against significant opposition — was one of the most consequential choices of the twentieth century. What happened at Nuremberg between 1945 and 1949 changed the world in ways most people have never fully understood. The trials created international criminal law from scratch. They established crimes against humanity as a legal concept that has shaped human rights law ever since. They rejected the defense of following orders — ...

Trace the epic evolution of human civilization from early migrations to the digital age in this sweeping world history. Perfect for your daily commute or deep-focus learning, this awe-inspiring narrative connects the massive dots of our shared past. Experience the triumphs, devastating conflicts...

From the philosophy of Aristotle and Confucius, to Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, to the paintings of Raphael, Botticelli, and many more, fascination with the virtues has endured and evolved to fit a wide range of cultural, religious, and philosophical contexts through the centuries. This Very Short Introduction audiobook introduces listeners to the various virtues: the moral virtues, the intellectual virtues, and the theological virtues, as well as the capital vices. 

Five standalone nightmares of flesh, steel, and extinction. In plague-stricken cities, drowned corporate ruins, frozen research stations, and battlefields beneath poisoned skies, humanity is running out of time. The machines built to save civilization have learned to rule it. The bodies meant to survive the apocalypse are becoming something no longer fully human. And the gods waiting at the end of the world are not ancient. They are synthetic. In Saints of the Chrome Plague, a quarantine surgeon discovers that the infection she was trained to cut out may be the only thing keeping the dying ...

A 12-Part Cyberpunk Series of Memory, Rebellion, and Digital Awakening The future wasn’t uploaded. It was stolen. In the year 7012, humanity no longer lives in bodies. They exist as streams of consciousness, scattered across a digital afterlife called the Echelon—a perfectly ordered realm of silence, compliance, and erasure. But then Aria awakens. She doesn’t remember much. Just the scent of rain. The weight of her own heartbeat. And the terrifying certainty that she was never meant to be there. What Readers Are Saying They Love: Bite-sized episodes perfect for a 15-minute read ...

When an impossible disappearance is quietly rewritten as ADMINISTRATIVE TRANSFER, investigator Maya Vale knows the case has not been closed. It has been swallowed. Maya has a gift — objects speak to her in pressure, temperature, emotional residue — and the city she lives in has begun to feel wrong in the way only she can feel. Too smooth. Too managed. As though reality itself has been tidied from the inside. Her investigation leads her to buried files, vanished people, and a boy whose human mask slipped just long enough to reveal something patient and ancient beneath — something that ...

From space they came, to space they returned. Humanity would not be denied.The crew trains for their mission and joins the Cygnus-12 as it tests the Interstellar Space Engine, venturing far beyond anywhere they've gone before. They didn't expect to find life, but they did, another human colony at the far reaches of space. The Cygnus-12 goes on a mission of peace, but war beckons, and the space ship is the prize.

Some gifts aren’t meant to be repaid. Telly D. Young has learned the hard way that healing comes with a price. Not for the people he saves—but for himself. When a man he healed weeks earlier tracks him down on a quiet city street, Telly expects fear. Gratitude, maybe. What he doesn’t expect is an envelope full of cash and a debt the man insists on settling. The money is refused. The secret is supposed to stay buried. But gratitude has a way of attracting attention. As the man walks away determined to “do something good” with the life he was given back, Telly realizes the danger ...

In a future built atop the ruins of the ancient world, hacker Zara Raines uncovers a secret buried beneath four millennia of dust—Sumerian cuneiform isn’t just writing. It’s executable code. When a corporate data vault reveals encryption that mirrors ancient Mesopotamian tablets, Zara stumbles into a discovery that could rewrite human history: the ziggurats were not temples—they were servers. The gods humanity once worshipped weren’t divine; they were engineers. Joined by disgraced archaeologist Dr. Roya Tehrani, Zara races through a labyrinth of museums, black markets, and ...

Existence is not a right. It is a debt you pay in complexity. For three thousand years, the Council has kept the universe from going bankrupt. Every star that burns, every memory you keep, every song you hum is logged in the Ledger and taxed. This is called Entropy Debt. When the cost gets too high, the Auditors come to prune you. Thomas is Auditor 7-Delta, the Council's most efficient scalpel. He deletes inefficient worlds and calls it balance, until the job starts deleting him. The sickness is called Erasure, and the only cure lives in the one place the Ledger cannot see. The Archive of ...

🌌 When the stars dim and the Earth itself begins to fracture, what remains of humanity? In Ecliptic Ruins: 20 Harrowing Sci-Fi Stories with Worlds on the Brink, author George Dusk delivers a cinematic collection of dying-earth tales where every horizon burns with finality—and every choice carries the weight of survival. From sunken citadels to fractured skies, from frozen flames to black salt plains, these stories span the last gasps of civilizations fighting against inevitable collapse. Each tale introduces vivid worlds and unforgettable characters—engineers who sacrifice for their ...

Embark on a gripping journey to the edges of the known universe with "The Prometheus Protocol." When the starship Astarte arrives at Kepler-186f, Captain Zara Vega and her team find more than an alien landscape—they discover a mysterious artifact pulsing with otherworldly energy. As they delve into its secrets, the artifact unlocks a power that transforms one crew member and forces them to confront the boundaries of human morality, knowledge, and survival. Racing against time, the crew faces a pivotal choice: harness the artifact’s power to elevate humanity or risk annihilation. In this...

When the last lights of civilization fade, what remains of the human soul? Across fifteen luminous visions of a dying Earth, Waning Worlds explores the fragile boundary between survival and surrender, memory and oblivion, science and faith. From deserts made of glass to oceans frozen beneath bioluminescent ice, from collapsing orbital stations to cities carved into salt and regret, these stories capture the haunting beauty of existence at twilight. 🌍 Inside this collection, you’ll meet: A meteorologist-turned-scavenger seeking forgiveness in a storm of molten glass A botanist ...