Knowledge = Power

Everyone wants to live a meaningful life. Long before our own day of  self-help books offering twelve-step programs and other guides to attain  happiness, the philosophers of ancient Greece explored the riddle of  what makes a life worth living, producing a wide variety of ideas and  examples to follow. This rich tradition was recast by Diogenes Laertius  into an anthology, a miscellany of maxims and anecdotes, that  generations of Western readers have consulted for edification as well as  entertainment ever since the Lives of the Eminent Philosophers,  first compiled in the third century AD, came to prominence in  Renaissance Italy. To this day, it remains a crucial source for much of  what we know about the origins and practice of philosophy in ancient  Greece, covering a longer period of time and a larger number of  figures-from Pythagoras and Socrates to Aristotle and Epicurus-than any  other ancient source.

One of The Economist's Best Books of the Year A  gripping, meticulously researched account of Lenin’s fateful 1917 rail  journey from Zurich to Petrograd, where he ignited the Russian  Revolution and forever changed the world In April 1917, as the  Russian Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication sent shockwaves across war-torn  Europe, the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution Vladimir Lenin was  far away, exiled in Zurich. When the news reached him, Lenin  immediately resolved to return to Petrograd and lead the revolt. But to  get there, he would have to cross Germany, which meant accepting help  from the deadliest of Russia’s adversaries. Millions of Russians at home  were suffering as a result of German aggression, and to accept German  aid―or even safe passage―would be to betray his homeland. Germany, for  its part, saw an opportunity to further destabilize Russia by allowing  Lenin and his small group of revolutionaries to return. Now, in Lenin on the Train,  drawing on a dazzling array of sources and never-before-seen archival  material, renowned historian Catherine Merridale provides a riveting,  nuanced account of this enormously consequential journey―the train ride  that changed the world―as well as the underground conspiracy and  subterfuge that went into making it happen. Writing with the same  insight and formidable intelligence that distinguished her earlier  works, she brings to life a world of counter-espionage and intrigue,  wartime desperation, illicit finance, and misguided utopianism.  When Lenin arrived in Petrograd’s now-famous Finland Station, he  delivered an explosive address to the impassioned crowds. Simple and  extreme, the text of this speech has been compared to such momentous  documents as Constantine’s edict of Milan and Martin Luther’s  ninety-five theses. It was the moment when the Russian revolution became  Soviet, the genesis of a system of tyranny and faith that changed the  course of Russia’s history forever and transformed the international  political climate.

The Moralia (Ancient Greek: Ἠθικά Ethika;  loosely translated as "Morals" or "Matters relating to customs and  mores") is a group of manuscripts dating from the 10th-13th centuries,  traditionally ascribed to the 1st-century Greek scholar Plutarch of Chaeronea.[1] The eclectic collection contains 78 essays and transcribed speeches. They provide insights into Roman and Greek life, but often are also timeless observations in their own right. Many  generations of Europeans have read or imitated them, including Michel de Montaigne and the Renaissance Humanists and Enlightenment philosophers.

“Lives” is a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans by the  ancient Greek historian Plutarch who lived during the first and second  century AD. The work consists of twenty-three paired biographies, one  Greek and one Roman, and four unpaired, which explore the influence of  character on the lives and destinies of important persons of Ancient  Greece and Rome. Rather than providing strictly historical accounts,  Plutarch was most concerned with capturing his subjects common moral  virtues and failings. This volume includes the complete “Lives” in which  you will find the biographies of the following persons: Theseus,  Romulus, Lycurgus, Numa Pompilius, Solon, Poplicola, Themistocles,  Camillus, Pericles, Fabius, Alcibiades, Coriolanus, Timoleon, Æmilius  Paulus, Pelopidas, Marcellus, Aristides, Marcus Cato, Philopœmen,  Flamininus, Pyrrhus, Caius Marius, Lysander, Sylla, Cimon, Lucullus,  Nicias, Crassus, Sertorius, Eumenes, Agesilaus, Pompey, Alexander,  Cæsar, Phocion, Cato the younger, Agis, Cleomenes, Tiberius Gracchus,  Caius Gracchus, Demosthenes, Cicero, Demetrius, Antony, Dion, Marcus  Brutus, Aratus, Artaxerxes, Galba, and Otho. Plutarch’s “Lives” remains  today as one of the most important historical accounts of the classical  period. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s  landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty,  probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t  understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension,  and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many  things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil.  What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of  things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and  flourish.  In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even  necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner.  The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists  shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and  protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the  nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call  “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social  policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write  your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the  sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by  trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal  finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to  the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of  ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are  loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it.

Ron Chernow won the National Book Award in 1990 for his first book, The  House of Morgan, and his second book, The Warburgs, won the Eccles Prize  as the Best Business Book of 1993. His biography of John D.  Rockefeller, Sr., Titan, was a national bestseller and a National Book  Critics Circle Award finalist.

New York Times Bestseller: This life story of the quirky  physicist is “a thorough and masterful portrait of one of the great  minds of the century” (The New York Review of Books). Raised  in Depression-era Rockaway Beach, physicist Richard Feynman was  irreverent, eccentric, and childishly enthusiastic—a new kind of  scientist in a field that was in its infancy. His quick mastery of  quantum mechanics earned him a place at Los Alamos working on the  Manhattan Project under J. Robert Oppenheimer, where the giddy young man  held his own among the nation’s greatest minds. There, Feynman turned  theory into practice, culminating in the Trinity test, on July 16, 1945,  when the Atomic Age was born. He was only twenty-seven. And he was just  getting started. In this sweeping biography, James Gleick captures the  forceful personality of a great man, integrating Feynman’s work and life  in a way that is accessible to laymen and fascinating for the  scientists who follow in his footsteps.

Called a great book worthy of a  great man, this definitive biography of the Commander in Chief of the  Pacific Fleet in World War II is considered the best book ever written  about Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. Highly respected by both the civilian  and naval communities, Nimitz was sometimes overshadowed by more  colorful warriors in the Pacific such as MacArthur and Halsey. Potter's  lively and authoritative style fleshes out Admiral Nimitz's personality  to help listeners appreciate the contributions he made as the principle  architect of Japan's defeat. Following the Japanese attacks on Pearl  Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt named Nimitz the  commander of the Pacific Fleet. An experienced and respected  leader, Nimitz was also an effective military strategist who directed US  forces as they closed in on Japan, beginning in May and June of 1942  with the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. Nimitz was promoted to the  newly created rank of fleet admiral in 1944 and became the naval  equivalent to the army's General Dwight Eisenhower. The book covers his  full life: from a poverty-stricken childhood to postwar appointments as  chief of naval operations and UN mediator, and candidly reveals Nimitz's  opinions of Halsey, Kimmel, King, Spruance, MacArthur, Forrestal,  Roosevelt, and Truman.

A brilliant and concise account of the lives and ideas of the great philosophers, from Plato to Dewey. Few  write for the non-specialist as well as Will Durant, and this book is a  splendid example of his eminently readable scholarship. Durant’s  insight and wit never cease to dazzle; The Story of Philosophy is a key book for anyone who wishes to survey the history and development of philosophical ideas in the Western world.

2015 Audie Award Finalist for Non-Fiction Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s revealing story of the people who created the  computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of  the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation  really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain  inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into  disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some  succeed and others fail? In his masterly saga, Isaacson begins  with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered computer  programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that  created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan  Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert  Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry  Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made  them so inventive. It’s also a narrative of how their ability to  collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more  creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators shows how they happen.