Introduction

The Best Textbooks on Every Subject is the Schelling point for the best textbooks on every subject. My The Best Tacit Knowledge Videos on Every Subject is the Schelling point for the best tacit knowledge videos on every subject. This post is the Schelling point for the best reference works for every subject.

Reference works provide an overview of a subject. Types of reference works include charts, maps, encyclopedias, glossaries, wikis, classification systems, taxonomies, syllabi, and bibliographies.

Reference works are valuable for orienting oneself to fields, particularly when beginning. They can help identify unknown unknowns; they help get a sense of the bigger picture; they are also very interesting and fun to explore.

How to Submit

My previous The Best Tacit Knowledge Videos on Every Subject uses author credentials to assess the epistemics of submissions. The Best Textbooks on Every Subject requires submissions to be from someone who has read at least three textbooks in the textbook domain.

It is more difficult to assess the epistemics of reference works than tacit knowledge videos and textbooks due to the breadth of the category “reference work”. That being the case, reference works are selected and included based on my judgment. The key question I intend to answer in selecting reference works is: “Does this reference work feel useful and interesting for giving me orientation in a domain?”

If you know of any reference works, I warmly invite you to submit them in the LessWrong comments with the following structure:

Domain: Philosophy

Link: History of Philosophy - Summarized & Visualized

Author(s): Deniz Cem Önduygu, Hüseyin Kuşçu, and Eser Aygün

Type: Interactive Chart

Why: Cool, comprehensive, interactive chart that shows the history of philosophy along a diagonal line.

The List

Humanities

History

Histography by Matan Stauber [interactive timeline] — Wikipedia‑driven interface plotting 14 billion years of events; scale toggles from decades to geological eras and updates daily.
Timeline of World History Poster by UsefulCharts [chart] — wall chart aligning all major civilizations 3300 BCE – present with consciously reduced Euro‑centric bias.
Timeline of US History Poster by UsefulCharts [chart] — 2025 update spans colonial era to today; features two overview maps plus photos of all 47 presidents, color‑coded by party.
Technology over the long run by

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