Political journalist and Vox co-founder Ezra Klein’s attempt to explain the polarization of American politics over the last few decades. Aside from the usual laundry list of social psychology findings on in-group/out-group dynamics and motivated reasoning, he wades into some more subtle point that I thought were interesting:

History of the Aztecs (or the Triple Alliance as apparently is the more correct term now) based on their own xiuhpohualli, or annals, recorded contemporaneously. Fascinating look at the rich political life of the various city-states in central Mexico both before and during the Spanish conquest. Interesting in that it contradicts accounts I’ve seen in the past (most notably in Charles Mann’s 1491) that smallpox was the primary weapon deployed by the Europeans in their conquest of indigenous…

This is a trade book by theoretical physicist (and host of the Mindscape podcast) Sean Carroll that covers a couple of basic topics: