Starting with my all-time favorites
Favorite/Most influential books:
Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts
The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager
The Song of the Dodo by David Quammen
The Power Broker by Robert Caro
Titan by Ron Chernow
A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 by G.J. Meyer
Seeing like a State by James C. Scott
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
The Prize by Daniel Yergin
Favorite blogs:
Slate Star Codex – Must-read. Read the top posts, then read other people’s favorite posts, then read every post that interests you.
Melting Asphalt – Posts don’t come often, but they’re all great. Centered around evolution, human behavior, and philosophy
Wait But Why – All the posts about Elon Musk are incredible. When you’re done with that, read the popular posts. You might as well read them all since there’s not that many and they’re all so great.
Favorite podcasts:
Hardcore History – Absolute must-listen. That is all
Radiolab – Historically it was mostly a podcast about science, but now it touches on a bit of everything
Philosophize This! – The best podcast at explaining philosophy that I’ve heard
This American Life – Different topic each week, generally with multiple stories in each episode
The History of Rome – You get exactly what you come for.
The Tim Ferris Show – YMMV depending on the guest but I like pretty much all of them except the psychedelics-focused episodes
Conversations with Tyler – Tyler Cowen interviewing guests of all kind
EconTalk – Great podcast on economics and ancillary subjects
Very Bad Wizards – A philosophy professor and a psychology professor talk about their fields, movies, and other things. They’re very funny
American History Tellers – Each series is a few episodes on a historical event. Sort of like a mini-Hardcore History
The Bill Simmons Podcast – Sports is its bread and butter but it also touches on most things pop culture
Other great books:
Influence by Robert Cialdini
Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
General of the Army: George C. Marshall by Ed Cray
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Alexander of Macedon by Peter Green
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles Mann
FDR by Jean Edward Smith
The Russian Revolution by Sheila Fitzpatrick
Other fantastic blogs/places to check out:
Stratechery – Focused on tech from a strategic point of view
Remains of the Day – Mostly writings about media and tech
Dan Wang – Personal essays; the ones I’ve read are all related to macroeconomics
The Browser – Daily media curation, centered around articles
Marginal Revolution – Blog centered around economics
Other great podcasts to check out:
Sinica Podcast – Great podcast for those interested in learning more about China. Mostly focused on current events, but occasionally goes into history
Recode Media – All things media
Making Sense with Sam Harris – Used to be one of my favorites but episodes lately have been hit or miss. I’m not as interested in the episodes about free will or consciousness and even less interested when Sam keeps bringing up the moral panic on college campuses and among liberal elites.
Invest Like the Best – All things investing. The title may be a little gimmicky but the conversations are all great.
Exponent – Tech strategy podcast that pairs well with Ben’s blog Stratechery
The Ezra Klein Show – Usually focused around politics. The ones less focused on contemporary politics and more focused on history interest me more
The Rewatchables – Watch the movie, then listen to the podcast. Great accompaniment
Revolutions – By Mike Duncan of The History of Rome. My favorite of the ones I’ve listened to is the one on the French Revolution
Politics Guys – Discussion on current political events in America from bipartisan perspective
When Diplomacy Fails – I’ve listened to the 30 Years War series, an old WWI series, and an old French Revolutionary Wars series and recommend all of those
American Innovations – Like American History Tellers, but each series of episodes is focused on the history of an invention as opposed to an event
On The Nose 