We are pleased to bring you our second annual summer reading list, following the enthusiastic response to last year’s edition. Considering the highly heightened, divisive atmosphere both at home and abroad, there may be no better time to take a moment to gain insight, and to reflect and refresh. We have spoken with colleagues, readers, family, and friends to curate a list which we hope will offer sources of inspiration, personal growth, and increasing knowledge.
Our suggestions are organized into three categories. We have steered away from more typical business books for the time being (those are readily assessable in well-circulating lists). This year we have focused a bit more on prominent issues, some under scrutiny, which are likely to only increase in attention in the year ahead. Most of the selections are recent releases.
Global History and its Implications for the Present
History is one of our most powerful tools for gathering information on pressing matters. As we find ourselves amid unrest and on the periphery of change, it seems a particularly fitting time to look back and gain historical perspective. We have selected several highly recommended titles that look at civilization’s cycles and progressions across several disciplines.
Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy by Henry Kissinger (July 2022) “Leaders,” writes Kissinger, “must balance what they know, which is necessarily drawn from the past, with what they intuit about the future.” He analyses the lives of six great leaders (all of whom he knew and worked with) to expose their unique strategies of stagecraft and their legacies, all the while underscoring the imperative of great leadership to the present world order.
Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present by Fareed Zakaria (March 2024) While the early decades of the 21st century have been marked by several revolutionary forces, it is by no means the first time. Past revolutionary eras shed much light on our current circumstances and may help us uncover feasible paths forward.
How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We are Going by Vaclav Smil (May 2022) Smil outlines the seven most fundamental factors governing our world and our ongoing prosperity. Bill Gates calls this a “tour de force” that provides the essential facts we need before we can tackle our problems effectively.
The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society by Joseph Stiglitz (April 2024) Nobel prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz breaks new ground by showing how economics presents a reframing around how to think about freedom and the role of the state in the 21st century.
The World: A Family History of Humanity by Simon Montefiore (May 2023) This book focuses on the family ties that connect every one of us. In the process, it uncovers a cast of extremely diverse, wildly interesting characters who have spanned the breadth of human endeavors and left an indelible imprint on the journey.
Self-Development
In this year’s section on development and growth, we chose to focus on elements of success often emphasized as essential to today’s impactful leadership—connectivity and communication, wellbeing and productivity, and storytelling.
Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Communication by Charles Duhigg (February 2024) Through stories and various studies, this book offers guidance on how to become an accomplished and impactful communicator. Duhigg shows that it is a learned and accessible art form.
Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing by Laura Martin (April 2024) Martin began her career at Google in sales but soon made a name for herself as a productivity expert. She has spent years coaching Google executives in how to reach a state of “productivity Zen.”
How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others and Being Seen by David Brooks (October 2023) All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. Unlocking this and really seeing another person is a profoundly creative act, according to Brooks, which is essential to the future of effective leadership, and a possible remedy to a world riddled with factionalism and misunderstanding.
Once Upon a Leader: Finding the Story at the Heart of your Leadership by Rick Lash and Chirstine Miners (September 2022) Often, senior leaders find themselves held back by patchy narratives that need re-examination and redefinition in order to cast light on one’s true self and inspire leadership identity and motivation.
Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport (March 2024) Based on extensive research on the habits and mindsets of some of the world’s most prominent thinkers, Newport has created the key principles of “slow productivity” which he offers as a more sustainable route to success and growth than the dominant means of overwhelm that pervade our current practices.
The Pulse of the Times
Finally, what are latest treatises on some of the most influential forces of this moment? Here we center on new books offering profound insights into AI, divisiveness, global warming, and mental illness.
The Coming Wave: Tech, Power and the 21st Centuries Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman (September 2023) As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Suleyman has been at the forefront of the AI revolution. He makes a strong argument that the coming decade will be defined by this wave of new technologies.
Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict by William Ury (February 2024) Based on his years of experience as an international negotiator, Ury argues that conflict is not only inevitable, it is essential to change and growth. The way forward is not to try and end conflict but to transform it through creative problem-solving to expose new possibilities altogether.
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt (March 2024) Haidt shows that “play-based” childhood was wiped out by the arrival of “phone-based” childhood in the early 2010s, and the shift has severely interfered with children’s neurological and social development. This is an important call to action for parents, teachers, tech companies and governments to help restore a healthier childhood.
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wells (February 2019) This has been called an “epoch-defining book” and “this generation’s Silent Spring.” It is widely seen as a must read for anyone who wants to understand the consequences of ongoing global warming.
AI Needs You: How we Can Change AIs Future and Save Our Own by Verity Harding (March 2024) Verity Harding offers inspiring lessons from the histories of three twentieth-century tech revolutions—the space race, in vitro fertilization, and the internet—to empower each of us to join the conversation about AI and embrace its possible impact on the future.
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We would be remiss if we did not also recommend our own colleague, Ricardo Sunderland’s wonderful, new book, The Energy Advantage: How to Go from Managing Your Time to Mastering Your Energy which unpacks the wisdom he has accrued from his work with top leaders in some of the world’s largest, most recognizable companies.
Whatever you choose to read, we hope these titles offer inspiration and a generally informative overview as to the topics and titles heading the booklists and recommended by your peers. As these selections suggest, we most likely face an eventful and transformative period ahead. May your own continuing curiosity and aspirations as a leader fuel you forward courageously. Enjoy the rest of your summer and happy reading from Egon Zehnder.
