Books like Complexity

An exhilarating intellectual journey into the minds of the maverick scientists who sought the hidden order behind chaos. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with Complexity.

intellectually stimulating
expansive
visionary

01
A new kind of science
Stephen Wolfram · 2002
A monumental, paradigm-shifting journey that asks you to see the entire universe as a series of simple, unfolding computations.
Shares:
- expansive
- visionary
02
Scale
Geoffrey B. West
A mind-expanding journey that reveals the hidden mathematical scaffolding holding up the natural and human-made world.
Shares:
- expansive
- visionary
- awe-struck
03
Chaos
James Gleick · 1987
A dizzying, paradigm-shifting journey that reveals the breathtaking mathematical poetry hidden within the messiness of the natural world.
Shares:
- intellectually stimulating
04
Emergence
Steven Johnson · 2001
A mind-expanding exploration that reveals the hidden, bottom-up rules governing everything from ant colonies to bustling cities.
Shares:
- intellectually stimulating
05
The collapse of complex societies
Tainter, Joseph
A rigorous, sobering exploration of how the very complexity we build to solve our problems eventually becomes the weight that crushes us.
Feels:
- sobering
- contemplative
- intellectual
06
Is God a mathematician?
Mario Livio · 2009
A contemplative journey through history and logic that asks whether the universe is fundamentally built on numbers.
Feels:
- intellectual
- contemplative
- wonder-filled
07
The half-life of facts
Samuel Arbesman
A reassuring and fascinating exploration of why what we know is always changing, and how to find comfort in the predictable rhythms of discovery.
Shares:
- expansive
08
I Am a Strange Loop
Douglas R. Hofstadter
A mind-bending, deeply personal journey into the architecture of consciousness that reveals how we live on inside the minds of those we love.
Shares:
- earnest
09
The Beginning of Infinity
David Deutsch
A mind-expanding philosophical journey that makes the universe feel fundamentally comprehensible and human potential utterly limitless.
Shares:
- visionary
- earnest
10
Sync
Steven Strogatz
A mind-expanding journey that reveals the hidden, elegant choreography connecting fireflies, heartbeats, and the cosmos.
Shares:
- intellectually stimulating
- expansive
- awe-struck
11
The sciences of the artificial
Herbert Alexander Simon · 1969
A paradigm-shifting intellectual journey that reshapes how you see the designed world and the complex systems that govern it.
Shares:
- expansive
- visionary
12
Thinking in systems
Donella H. Meadows and Diana Wright
A paradigm-shifting lens that transforms the chaotic noise of the world into an elegant, interconnected web of cause and effect.
Shares:
- expansive
- earnest
- the interconnectedness of all things

Back to Complexity