With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when we seem to be stripping all value from the idea of knowing things --- no need for math, no need for map-reading, no need for memorization --- are we risking our ability to think? As we empty our minds, will we one day be incapable of thoughtfulness? Addressing these questions, Simon Winchester explores how humans have attained, stored and disseminated knowledge. Studded with strange and fascinating details, KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW is a deep dive into learning and the human mind. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming.

Land --- whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city --- is central to our existence. It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. In LAND, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing --- and have done --- with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet. The book examines in depth how we acquire land, how we steward it, how and why we fight over it, and finally, how we can, and on occasion do, come to share it. Ultimately, Winchester confronts the essential question: Who actually owns the world’s land --- and why does it matter?

The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 18th-century England, standards of measurement were established, giving way to the development of machine tools --- machines that make machines. Eventually, the application of precision tools and methods resulted in the creation and mass production of items from guns and glass to mirrors, lenses and cameras --- and eventually gave way to further breakthroughs, including gene splicing, microchips and the Hadron Collider. Simon Winchester takes us back to the origins of the Industrial Age, to England where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production.

As the Mediterranean shaped the classical world, and the Atlantic connected Europe to the New World, the Pacific Ocean defines our tomorrow. With China on the rise, so, too, are the American cities of the West coast. Today, the Pacific is ascendant. Its geological history has long transformed us --- tremendous earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis --- but its human history, from a Western perspective, is quite young, beginning with Magellan’s 16th-century circumnavigation. It is a natural wonder whose most fascinating history is currently being made.

How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Simon Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers and innovators. Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.

Spanning from the earth's geological origins to modern-day research and technology, Simon Winchester narrates the saga of the Atlantic Ocean against the backdrop of mankind’s intellectual evolution.

In the late 1980s, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester set out on foot to discover the Republic of Korea --- from its southern tip to the North Korean border --- in order to set the record straight about this enigmatic and elusive land. Fascinating for its vivid presentation of historical and geographic detail, KOREA is that rare book that actually defines a nation and its people.