Sophie Roell, Editor

Many of us are increasingly alarmed at the damage human beings have done—and continue to do—to the natural world and would love to be better informed about what we need to do to protect our precious environment. Fortunately, every year, the Wainwright Prize picks out the best writing on global conservation—books that are not only informative but highly readable. Here, British journalist Charlotte Smith, chair of the judging panel, talks us through the books that made the 2021 shortlist and why it’s worth reading all of them.

It’s a golden age for narrative history, with lots of highly readable books bringing to life many different aspects of the past, says historian Donna McBride. A Fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, she has led ‘The Historians’ reading group there for the last five years. Here, she recommends some of the best popular histories the group has read and shares some tips on how to set up and run your own history reading group.

Graphic histories can offer complex and layered insights into the past and are underused as a medium, argue historian Eleanor Janega and illustrator Neil Emmanuel, authors of The Middle Ages: A Graphic History. Here, they recommend five graphic histories that show the power of comics not only for telling moving stories but also transmitting difficult concepts.

Even some of the world’s most authoritarian rulers continue to pay lip service to democracy and people’s right to vote for their leaders, but the days when many social scientists believed that all countries at a certain level of prosperity would eventually turn to liberal democracy are over, says Francis Fukuyama, now a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute. Here, he recommends books to better understand liberal democracy, and what those of us lucky enough to live in one can do to protect our form of government.

Even if you’ve never studied philosophy, it’s nice to be able to read a few books and get a sense of what it’s all about. Here, we asked our philosophy editor, Nigel Warburton, to talk us through five key works of Western philosophy—many of them in the public domain and available for free as ebooks—and explain why, despite one or two odd conclusions or quirky writing styles, they’ve played such an important role in expanding our understanding of the world.

Mary Wollstonecraft lived by her pen and wrote trenchant critiques of the role of women and marriage in late 18th century British society. She died aged 38, a few days after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Shelley. She is often remembered for writing the Vindication of the Rights of Woman, but it was not in fact her best book, says Cambridge intellectual historian Sylvana Tomaselli. Here, she recommends books to read to get a good understanding of the extraordinary Mary Wollstonecraft, and the writers she was both influenced by and reacting against.

Many of us avoid conflict in our relationships with family and friends or at work, but that’s probably a mistake, says Ian Leslie, author of a number of nonfiction books on human behaviour. Here, he recommends books that offer insight into how to disagree productively, from evolutionary biology to 17th century Rhode Island, from Nelson Mandela to seemingly intractable conflicts.

The periodic table of the elements has been described as “one of the great intellectual achievements of humankind”. Here, Noelle Eckley Selin of MIT and Henrik Selin of Boston University talk us through some of their favourite books about various chemical elements and explain why they’re vital to understanding the world around us.

Many of us try to avoid thinking about taxes unless we have to, but the truth is taxation has had a profound effect on the course of history and will play a key in the future society we create, too. Here, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, both public finance economists and authors of Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom Through the Ages, recommend books about taxes that are not only informative but also good reads.

As the world’s biggest democracy, India could be an inspiring example of how a multiethnic, multilingual country with many different religions can come together to form a vibrant state with equality enshrined in its constitution. But all that is in danger of going down the drain, as the country transforms into a brutally exclusionary Hindu-supremacist state under the leadership of Narendra Modi, says Kapil Komireddi, essayist and author of Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India. Here, he talks us through how the country got to where it is now and recommends five books that present a “comprehensive picture” of contemporary India.