Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to How Concrete Became a Thing

An illustrated history - from Hardbound

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. How Concrete Became a Thing launched in 2016; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1
How High School Became a Thing▲84
A new illustrated story, from Hardbound
2016 · its alternatives →
2
Where does the moon come from?▲111
An illustrated story, from Hardbound
2016 · its alternatives →
3
What is Fire?▲134
An illustrated explanation, from Hardbound
2016 · its alternatives →
4
The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood▲67
Where the big ideas of the modern era came from
2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
5
Salt▲62
The strange and colorful history of a mineral
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
6
The History of Everything▲296
Explore events from the BigBang to the birth of the Internet
2018 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
7
Illustrated History of OS X▲253
An illustrated history of Mac OS X
2015 · git-tower.com · its alternatives →
8
Make It New: The History of Silicon Valley Design▲60
Katz tells how design helped transform Silicon Valley
2015 · mitpress.mit.edu · its alternatives →
9
The Shape of Time▲62
Remarks on the history of things
2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
10
Brick by Brick▲65
How LEGO rewrote the rules of innovation
2016 · amazon.ca · its alternatives →
11
Surprisingly Awesome - #3 Concrete▲65
Concrete will outlast us all.
2015 · soundcloud.com · its alternatives →
12
Globe of History▲189
I built Globe of History — an interactive 3D visualization of 6,000 years of human events, mapped onto the Earth’s surface. It includes 5,000+ data points covering wars, inventions, assassinations, natural disasters, and philosophers — spanning 4000 BCE → 2025 CE. The main goal was to build a visual entry point into history — not a database, but a way to instantly sense density and continuity over time. Stack / Process Python for scraping structured event data from Wikipedia/Wikidata Gemini 2.0 Flash for AI-based enrichment and multi-stage verification Mapbox GL JS + React (Vite)…
Nov 2025 · globeofhistory.com · its alternatives →
13
Where Good Ideas Come From▲79
The natural history of innovation
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
14
A History of Silicon Valley▲71
The greatest creation of wealth in the history of the planet
2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
15VT
Visualizing the math that powers 3D character animation▲238
Hi everyone! I'm the author of this project. I wrote it because I think that the math that makes characters move in games and movies is incredibly beautiful, and I wanted to give others a glimpse into it. It's crazy to think that quaternions, an abstract mathematical tool discovered by William Rowan Hamilton in 1843, would be so perfectly suited to solve hard problems in the world of 3D character animation more than a hundred years later. The story of how he discovered quaternions is also beautiful. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia: "Hamilton was looking for ways of extending complex numbers…
2022 · diegomacario.github.io · its alternatives →
16
Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down▲72
Why bridges don't collapse and other explanations
2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
17
Illustrated History of iOS▲230
A visual journey through 10 years of iOS
2017 · git-tower.com · its alternatives →
18
The Design of Everyday Things▲165
Good, usable design is possible
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
19
The Act of Creation▲54
A great examination of creativity
2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
20
First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His and the Nation's Prosperity▲55
How the United States was founded on business
2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
21
Where Good Ideas Come From▲62
The natural history of innovation
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
22
The Origin of (Almost) Everything▲64
From the Big Bang to Belly-Button Fluff
2016 · waterstones.com · its alternatives →
23
Drawing On Our History▲60
An anatomical view of the world I was born into.
2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
24
How Magnets Work▲126
You've always wondered, haven't you? (a Hardbound story)
2016 · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →