Reading, Writing, and Reflecting

In my previous post, I mentioned the recommended book list from Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2010.   Here’s a slide show version the book list on Foreign Policy’s site.   For a quick glance at Top 20 books, here’s the full list in one spot with the book description offered by Foreign Policy magazine.

1. Fault Lines by Raghuram Rajan– Rajan’s look at the fissures that brought about the global financial crisis — and which are still at work today.
2. Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin– As the Wall Street crisis went global, Sorkin updated his account of the crisis’s ground zero to include more recent events.
3. The Plundered Planet by Paul Collier– From the author of The Bottom Billion, a new work that takes apart the dichotomy between environmentalism and development aid and explains why the two must work in harmony.
4. The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley– Ridley’s determinedly cheerful book on why everything is going to be OK — even Africa and global warming.
5. The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely– A defense of the forces of irrationality in human life.
6. This Time is Different by Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart–  Rogoff and Reinhart’s look at how financial crises have dogged human history, from medieval times to the present day.
7. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen– The novel of the year, by the newly anointed “Great American Novelist.”
8. Cyber War by Richard Clarke and Robert Knake– From the man who famously warned about 9/11, a newly terrifying prognosis: that the United States isn’t prepared for the greatest threat of the 21st century — online war.
9. Washington Rules by Andrew Bacevich– A scholar of war examines how conventional wisdom can immobilize progress, both within himself and in his own country.
10. The Invisible Gorilla by Christoper Chabris and Daniel Simons – Two psychologists unravel the mysteries of illusion in daily life.
11. Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt– A passionate, outraged cry for collective action, from the late historian.
12. On Compromise and Rotten Compromises by Avishai Margalit–  When is it justified to accept a strategic compromise for peace? Sometimes, but not always.
13. Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath- A behavioral-psych look at making huge changes, from the personal to the political — why it’s so difficult, and how to accomplish it gracefully.
14. The Big Short by Michael Lewis- The instantly classic retelling of what went so wrong in the U.S. financial sector before the crash.
15. Human Accomplishment by Charles Murray- A novel approach to intellectual history, from the controversial co-author of The Bell Curve.
16. Energy Myths and Realities by Vaclav Smil– A grand debunking of Western thought about climate change, from Bill Gates‘s favorite iconoclast.
17. Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani- One of India’s most essential entrepreneurs explores what his country might become, if long-entrenched restrictions on growth and prosperity could be set aside.
18. Animal Spirits by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller- Akerlof and Shiller’s work, written at the nadir of the economic collapse in 2008 and 2009, about how human irrationality drives markets.
19. The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande– From the surgeon and New Yorker author, a plea for better tools to synthesize information — one that has been taken up by the World Health Organization.
20. Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky– The web 2.0 guru on the social implications of the Internet.