Guest on Dwarkesh Podcast
4 books recommended · 2 episodes
Books they recommend that someone else wrote.
“Lucretius is on the nature of things De Rerum Natura which is our best capsule of ancient atomism and the atoms and vacuum theory of matter right which is written in around the BCAD term and drifts along being not very important…”
On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
Guest on Dwarkesh PodcastAda Palmer – Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time
“Many people are familiar with Greenblatt's book, The Swerve, which accredits a lot of change to the materialist science that this poem articulates. There's a much more complex story, which you know is told in my book, which refers to Greenblatt's.”
Why: Provides a more detailed perspective on the materialist science of the period.
The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
Guest on Dwarkesh PodcastWhy Leonardo was a saboteur, Gutenberg went broke, and Florence was weird – Ada Palmer
“He is arrested, tortured, exiled. And in exile, writes the prince, but dedicates it to the very family that exiled him because they now control Florence and he will only work for Florence.”
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
Guest on Dwarkesh PodcastWhy Leonardo was a saboteur, Gutenberg went broke, and Florence was weird – Ada Palmer
“Milton of Paradise Lost Fame wrote our first big defense of the free press. And this is in the moment in the early 1600s when England doesn't yet have systematic censorship law.”
Why: It is a beautifully written rhetorical piece presenting the importance of letting free voices move.
Aeropagitica by Inc. Staff Icon Group International
Guest on Dwarkesh PodcastWhy Leonardo was a saboteur, Gutenberg went broke, and Florence was weird – Ada Palmer
Named without an opinion attached.
“Yes. So he writes The Prince, he dedicates it to Lorenzo de Piero de Medici, and gives it to him 1513, and he says in the final chapter,…”
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
Guest on Dwarkesh PodcastAda Palmer – Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time
“Milton of Paradise Lost Fame wrote our first big defense of the free press. And this is in the moment in the early 1600s when England doesn't yet have systematic censorship law.”
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Guest on Dwarkesh PodcastWhy Leonardo was a saboteur, Gutenberg went broke, and Florence was weird – Ada Palmer