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  • ESSAY

Books for our time: seven classics that speak to us now

Leading thinkers choose past works illuminating crucial issues today.
By
  1. Freeman Dyson

    1. Freeman Dyson is a retired professor in the School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.

  2. Alondra Nelson

    1. Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Chair at the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.

  3. Emilie Savage-Smith

    1. Emilie Savage-Smith is a retired professor of the history of Islamic science at the University of Oxford, UK.

  4. Ann Pettifor

    1. Ann Pettifor is director of Policy Research in Macroeconomics (PRIME) in London.

  5. Callum Roberts

    1. Callum Roberts is professor of marine conservation at the University of York, UK.

  6. Ismail Serageldin

    1. Ismail Serageldin is founding director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt.

  7. Chikwe Ihekweazu

    1. Chikwe Ihekweazu is director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Abuja.

Illustration by Richard Wilkinson

From planetary change to geopolitical recalibrations, 2019 has been convulsive. The year saw millions worldwide protesting against governmental inaction on the cascading crises in the global environment. Anxiety over nuclear annihilation vied with concerns over the repugnant resurgence of ‘race science’ and the emergent ethics of gene editing. Amid the tumult, Nature asked seven scientists, scholars and historians to pluck a book from all time that speaks to our time.

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Nature 576, 374-378 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03840-6

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