If you’re like us, you probably live by the Golden Rule. You’re probably also a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks the world is watching you, which explains the stockpile of tin foil, but doesn’t explain the stacks of newspapers or the brazen display of vulgarity you engage in when home alone. We can see you when you’re doing that and it both excites and terrifies us.

Do unto others and watch the world back with this limited edition, three-volume set of picture books from the National Geographic Society. Satisfy the vengeful voyeur in you by thumbing through 1,468 pages of history. At $500 for this window on the world, you’ll want to wash the potato chip grease off of your thumbs first. These aren’t your video game controllers. Maybe you should tidy up around your place too because the books come with a slipcover that transforms into a book stand.

One edition signed by 43 of the featured photographers sold at auction for $13,000 this month, CBS reported.

Taschen Books photography editor and Golden Rule namesake Reuel Golden combed through National Geographic archives of about 11.5 million images, some dating back to as early as the 1870’s. Among those are some of the first commercially-successful images, autochromes, printed around 1907. Others are photographs known the world over, images that have defined historic events, cultures and tragedies.

One photo depicts a pretty insane scene in an Indian temple in 1975. Several people stood in a room full of rats believed to provide transport to their Hindu goddess. “As soon as I started to make photographs, I realized the rats were crawling up my light stands and chewing on my light cords, shorting out my flash,” longtime National Geographic photog Jim Stansfield told CBS.

The first volume in the set contains photos taken in the Americas and Antarctica, volume two takes you across the Atlantic to Europe and Africa and the third volume gives you a peek at Asia and Oceania.

See how the slipcase transforms into a bookstand, plus an extra gallery after the Jump…