I asked, "What's the best history book you've ever read?"

I received 300+ responses.

Here are 20 books that will help you understand the world and how we got here:

1/

Sapiens

by @harari_yuval

https://t.co/lUZQ84rpDX
2/

The Lessons of History

by Ariel Durant & Will Durant

https://t.co/yJs2qN3acr
3/

Guns, Germs, and Steel

by Jared Diamond

https://t.co/rKFBcptM8b
4/

A Brief History of Nearly Everything

by @billbrysonn

https://t.co/Ndl6r8sQfz
5/

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

by Jack Weatherford

https://t.co/jSUFMSWxjj
6/

1776

by David McCullough

https://t.co/zoQS8ovRrf
7/

A Little History of the World

by E. H. Gombrich

https://t.co/GDetb4Rg4w
8/

The Guns of August

by Barbara W. Tuchman

https://t.co/ONTm2A3TCh
9/

The Silk Roads

by @peterfrankopan

https://t.co/CABoaCsfn3
10/

The Invention of Nature

by @andrea_wulf

https://t.co/Fw4jccq244
11/

The Ascent of Money

by @nfergus

https://t.co/MMJZ15LCCO
12/

An Ancestor’s Tale

by @RichardDawkins

https://t.co/mKUnijhRnc
13/

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

by Dee Brown

https://t.co/D4rCfWZYQh
14/

The Dawn of Everything

by @davidgraeber & @davidwengrow

https://t.co/SrG8it8Jv0
15/

A People's History of the United States

by Howard Zinn

https://t.co/42OPvfgcF0
16/

How to Hide an Empire

by @dimmerwahr

https://t.co/hxQ4iYzJHy
17/

The Warmth of Other Suns

by @Isabelwilkerson

https://t.co/2HXurjb2pa
18/

The March of Folly

by Barbara W. Tuchman

https://t.co/yeZ8yV69y8
19/

SPQR

by @wmarybeard

https://t.co/IuPqyyBdOG
20/

Lies My Teacher Told Me

by @JamesWLoewen

https://t.co/6zFjSjvBnl
If you want more:

-book recs
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More from Alex & Books 📚

Want an amazing book recommendation from:

-Elon Musk
-Jeff Bezos
-Bill Gates
-Tim Ferriss
-Naval Ravikant
-Charlie Munger
-Warren Buffett

If so here are 20:

Elon Musk


Jeff Bezos


Bill Gates


Tim Ferriss

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A brief analysis and comparison of the CSS for Twitter's PWA vs Twitter's legacy desktop website. The difference is dramatic and I'll touch on some reasons why.

Legacy site *downloads* ~630 KB CSS per theme and writing direction.

6,769 rules
9,252 selectors
16.7k declarations
3,370 unique declarations
44 media queries
36 unique colors
50 unique background colors
46 unique font sizes
39 unique z-indices

https://t.co/qyl4Bt1i5x


PWA *incrementally generates* ~30 KB CSS that handles all themes and writing directions.

735 rules
740 selectors
757 declarations
730 unique declarations
0 media queries
11 unique colors
32 unique background colors
15 unique font sizes
7 unique z-indices

https://t.co/w7oNG5KUkJ


The legacy site's CSS is what happens when hundreds of people directly write CSS over many years. Specificity wars, redundancy, a house of cards that can't be fixed. The result is extremely inefficient and error-prone styling that punishes users and developers.

The PWA's CSS is generated on-demand by a JS framework that manages styles and outputs "atomic CSS". The framework can enforce strict constraints and perform optimisations, which is why the CSS is so much smaller and safer. Style conflicts and unbounded CSS growth are avoided.