Capital in the 21 century, how to win and influence people, Sidhartha, meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the mars trilogy, the nurture revolution.

These are off the top of my head.

The Catholic Church thing - yea that was quite unexpected for me, and apparently accidental for the church too - the basic premise was - they banned cousin marriage, and heavily enforced it throughout all of society - kings to peasants - this drove people to move around and settle outside of their home towns, driving up individualism and just changing the way our brains work on a neurological level - we have always been a close nit kin social structure animals.

The e book explains it quite well with tons of historical data, neuroscience, comparisons with different countries, continents and social structures.

It got me to “understand” India on a much deeper level since I moved here from Europe, and not get pissed off at people for “not thinking things through”. But also appreciate how small and consistent things can drive profound changes. Also how did china/ussr speed run the Industrial Revolution so quickly - spoiler alert - they copied the same “ban cousin marriage” thing