Sapiens changed my life. This book by Yuval Noah Harari offers the widest possible aperture on human history. It focuses on our species’ favorite subject: ourselves. It also points to the devastation we’ve wrought on other human species (now extinct) and every other species we plunder. I cannot recommend it more highly.
My favorite aspect of the book is how it contextualizes big ideologies that dominate human affairs (Christianity and capitalism, to take two big examples). Rather than take sides about their merits, he points to their function for our species. This macro-scaling, while stepping aside from petty dogmatic questions, allows for his arguments to be simultaneously sweeping and well-founded.
This is a book to be read and re-read.
Trails and Talismans 