Person
Every book Christopher Ryan recommended on podcasts
Across 2 podcasts. Every show Christopher Ryan appears on, in one place — not just one.
Christopher Ryan’s most recommended books
- A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit
- A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright
- Cannibals and Kings by Marvin Harris
- At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen
- Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Daniel Everett
- The End of the World is Just the Beginning by Peter Zeihan
- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
- Cultural Materialism by Marvin Harris
- Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
- Future Perfect by Steven Johnson
Christopher Ryan is an author and podcast guest recognized for his work exploring human culture, civilization, and the dark side of progress. Appearing on programs like The Jordan Harbinger Show and The Joe Rogan Experience, he has recommended several influential books. He highlighted Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell as an account showing how people become generous and compassionate during disasters. To introduce listeners to cultural materialism, Ryan recommended the popular books of anthropologist Marvin Harris. He endorsed Ronald Wright's A Short History of Progress as a survey illustrating how civilizations follow a repetitive lifecycle of rise and decline. He praised Peter Zeihan's The End of the World is Just the Beginning while discussing the predicted collapse of globalization. Furthermore, Ryan brought up Peter Matthiessen's novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord to discuss uncontacted tribes, recommended Daniel Everett's Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes to demonstrate the happiness of the Pirahã people, and cited Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan to describe the neo-Hobbesian narrative he challenges in his own work.
Books recommended by Christopher Ryan
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A Paradise Built in Hell
A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit is a striking non-fiction book examining disaster sociology that argues communities naturally respond to crises with extraordinary generosity, cooperation, and mutual aid rather than descending into panic or selfishness.
Recommended“And what the scientists have actually found in decades of studying human behavior in disaster is that's precisely when people are the most generous and the most compassionate and the most kind to strangers, to the point where there's a fantastic book written by Rebecca Solnit about this called A Paradise Built in Hell.”
Where to get it
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Sex at Dawn
Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá is an exploration of human sexuality that challenges conventional ideas about monogamy by examining evolutionary biology and primate behavior.
Discussed“I talked about this in my previous book, Sex at Dawn, as well. One that I think I talked about in Civilized to Death was he mentions the Kung San people of Botswana, of the Kalahari.”
Where to get it
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A Short History of Progress
A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright is a survey of human civilizations that examines how societies follow a similar lifecycle of organic rise and eventual decline.
Recommended“I don't know the point of no return, but you can definitely tell when civilizations are on the downslope. There's a fantastic book called A Brief History of Progress by Canadian writer Ronald Wright. I think his name is W-R-I-G-H-T.”
Where to get it
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Cannibals and Kings
Cannibals and Kings by Marvin Harris is an anthropological exploration of the environmental, economic, and cultural pressures that have driven human societies toward war, hierarchy, and even cannibalism throughout history.
Recommended“I'm an adherent of what's called cultural materialism in anthropology. It's a school of anthropology started by a guy named Marvin Harris, who was the head of the anthropology department at Columbia. Really interesting guy. Anyone who wants to read about this, I'd highly recommend his popular books, Cannibals and Kings, as a great place to start.”
Where to get it
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Civilized to Death
Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan is a critical examination of modern human progress that argues civilization has left people sicker, lonelier, and more anxious than their hunter-gatherer ancestors.
Discussed“Hunter-gatherers, as I discussed in the book, live well into their 70s all over the world.”
Where to get it
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At Play in the Fields of the Lord
At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen is an acclaimed novel that explores the spiritual, cultural, and ecological clashes that occur when American mercenaries and missionaries encounter an uncontacted indigenous tribe in the Amazon rainforest.
Recommended“there's a great book called at play in the fields of the Lord by Peter mat I've heard of it I've never read it it's a beautiful book”
Where to get it
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Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle
Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Daniel Everett chronicles the author's transformative experiences living among the Pirahã people of the Amazon.
Recommended“there's a great book um uh don't sleep there are snakes”
Where to get it
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The End of the World is Just the Beginning
The End of the World is Just the Beginning by Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical analysis that forecasts the impending collapse of globalization, demographic decline, and the fragmentation of international trade systems.
Recommended“I think he's fantastic. His book, The End is Just the Beginning, you know, he's been predicting the collapse of globalization for quite a while, and we see it happening before our eyes right now.”
Where to get it
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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown is a deeply influential historical book that chronicles the systematic displacement, broken treaties, and forced assimilation of Native American tribes in the American West through the perspective of the indigenous peoples.
Discussed“they were ready bury my heart at Wounded Knee no I don't think I did that's a beautiful book it's a really interesting book about the sort of final chapter of different tribes in North America”
Where to get it
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Cultural Materialism
Cultural Materialism by Marvin Harris is an influential anthropological text that examines how shifting technologies, environments, and material conditions fundamentally shape societal structures, behaviors, and cultural values.
Discussed“it's also interesting to look at how the culture reflects the environment yes right Marvin Harris wrote about this cultural materialism how how a culture responds to an environment”
Where to get it
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Desert Solitaire
Desert Solitaire is a famous autobiographical work by writer Edward Abbey that reflects on his experiences as a park ranger in southeastern Utah and offers a passionate defense of the American wilderness.
Discussed“because I read this book called desert solitire by Edward Abbey”
Where to get it
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Future Perfect
Discussed“I read a book recently called future perfect uh don't remember the author Steven Johnson is the author another internet Tech web guy right”
Where to get it
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High Price
High Price by Carl Hart is an autobiographical book that details the author's journey from a difficult upbringing in a high-crime neighborhood to becoming a trailblazing neuroscientist and professor at Columbia University.
Discussed“he's got a book out uh called high price and it's sort of a autobiographical um account”
Where to get it
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Leviathan
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes is a foundational 1651 political treatise arguing that human life in a state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, and that peace requires absolute submission to a strong central authority.
Discussed“So I call it the neo-Hobzian narrative. As you refer to Hobbes' line from Leviathan, before the advent of the state, human life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Where to get it
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The Alchemist
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a celebrated philosophical novel that follows a young Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago on his journey across the desert in search of treasure, ultimately discovering a message about listening to one's heart and pursuing personal destiny.
Discussed“he wrote The Alchemist like the bestselling book in the history of humanity”
Where to get it
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The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell is a seminal study of comparative mythology that outlines the universal narrative structure of the hero's journey, detailing stages such as departure, initiation, and return.
Discussed“But at the end of the book, I did try to land the plane on a hopeful note because I referred to Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and he is the mythologist who showed that almost all societies around the world have the same central myth.”
Where to get it
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The Monkey Wrench Gang
The Monkey Wrench Gang is an eco-anarchist novel by Edward Abbey that follows a group of activists engaging in sabotage to protect the American Southwest.
Discussed“in fact Earth First that movement started based on one of his books called the monkey wrench gang”
Where to get it
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The Odyssey
The Odyssey by Homer is an epic ancient Greek poem that follows the arduous ten-year journey of Odysseus as he attempts to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, encountering mythical creatures, divine wrath, and numerous trials along the way.
Discussed“You know, as we're talking, The Odyssey is a huge film, right? Oh, yeah. That's the oldest story in the Western world, but it turns out it's the same story in many other worlds. It's about the young person who goes out and has adventures, searching for something, right?”
Where to get it
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The Psychopath Test
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson is a popular investigative nonfiction book that explores the concept of psychopathy, the psychiatric industry, and the formal checklists used to diagnose personality disorders.
Discussed“I have a friend who wrote a book called The psychopath test oh I've read that yeah John Ronson yeah I started reading it I should say I think I bailed on it I got bored”
Where to get it
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The Rational Optimist
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley is a bold exploration of human history that argues prosperity and rising living standards are driven by trade, innovation, and the free exchange of ideas.
Discussed“But what I was trying to do in the book was just say, look, you know, I quoted from a book called The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley, who's a very well-known writer.”
Where to get it
The other 2 books Christopher Ryan recommended or discussed, ranked
- The sacred mushroom and the cross by John Marco Allegro
- War by Sebastian Junger
Books Christopher Ryan wrote
Appearances
Other mentions (14: passing, ad reads, own books)
“There's a there's an anecdote that is in this book civilized to death notice that segue”
“There's a there's an anecdote that is in this book civilized to death Notice that segue”
“And then we were gonna do a movie together and whatever and then his wife like took the book away from him do you remember oh yeah yeah yeah yeah”
“I actually told this book the story at the beginning of sex at dawn I was with my girlfriend at the time”
“it's one of its it covers a lot of the same ground that I cover in civilized to death actually I quote him in civilized to death”
“you ever read call of the wild Jack London yeah”
“and his first books called the natural mind that he wrote the marriage of the Sun and the moon”
“and his first books called the natural mind that he wrote the marriage of the Sun and the moon”
“then a book called from chocolate to morphine these are all like stretch”
“tangentially reading it's out now anybody can get it everywhere”
“he wrote a book called One River”
“but I mean as far as the public publishing thing I'm because of the success of sex at dawn I think I'm in a position to sort of you know I've got leverage and and the guy the editor who um who acquired the book is the guy who edited sex at dawn”
“so what we argue in sex at dawn is that human sexuality was actually a way to bond the group together”
“sex of Dawn”