There are times in our lives when we forage and hunt for confirmations that will feed us until we finally reach future epiphanies. For several years it seemed those confirmations were being wheeled to my front door — one after another — in a series of supremely well written books. Each of them sustained me for months at a time in ways that are difficult to describe. There is little doubt that you’ve experienced something very similar whether it was a book, movie, painting, song, or any number of works created by other humans. 

I believe no single person’s idea is solely their own because we all stand on the shoulders of giants. These were my specific giants for a number of years. 

• Jeremy Rifkin: Empathic Civilization (2009)
• Kwame Anthony Appiah: Cosmopolitanism (2006)
• Steven Weber & Bruce Jentleson: End of Arrogance (2010)
• Pankaj Ghemawat: World 3.0 (2011)
• Todd Pittinsky: Us Plus Them (2012)
• Jonathan Haidt: Righteous Mind (2013)

My next several posts will outline each of these great works and attempt to explain why they are so monumental and how they changed my thinking.