The non-fiction charts were once dominated by celebrity memoirs and self-help books. Now, they have taken a turn for the intellectual: from the history of man in Sapiens to the history of economics in Capital. At a moment in time when the bestsellers list looks more like a college reading list, Kinfolk charts how global uncertainty, social media overload and the TED Talks juggernaut all contributed to the rise of the “brainy book.”

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