Books Recommended by Walter Isaacson
Books by Walter Isaacson
13 books recommended by Walter Isaacson
Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity
Douglas Rushkoff is one of today's most incisive media theorists and a provocative critic of our digital economy. He's also fun to read
The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives
This is the most important—and fascinating—book yet written about how the digital age will affect our world. With vivid examples and brilliant analysis, it shows how the internet and other communications technologies will empower individuals and transform the way nations and businesses operate. How will… Read the full quote
This is the most important—and fascinating—book yet written about how the digital age will affect our world. With vivid examples and brilliant analysis, it shows how the internet and other communications technologies will empower individuals and transform the way nations and businesses operate. How will different societies make tradeoffs involving privacy, freedom, control, security, and the relationship between the physical and virtual worlds? This realistic but deeply optimistic book provides the guideposts. It’s both profoundly wise and wondrously readable.
Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World With OKRs
by John Doerr
In this indispensable book, the most important venture capitalist of our era reveals a key to business innovation and success. This crisp and colorful book combines fascinating case studies with insightful personal stories to show how OKRs can add magic to organizations of any size.
Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins
The great Garry Kasparov takes on the key economic issue of our time: how we can thrive as humans in a world of thinking machines. This important and optimistic book explains what we as humans are uniquely qualified to do. Instead or wringing our hands about robots, we should all read this book and embrace the future.
The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley
by Eric Weiner
Why do certain places produce a spontaneous eruption of creativity? What made Athens and Florence and Silicon Valley? This witty and fun book has an insight in every paragraph. It’s a charming mix of history and wisdom cloaked as a rollicking travelogue filled with colorful characters.
Being Nixon: A Man Divided
by Evan Thomas
What was it really like to be Richard Nixon? Evan Thomas tackles this fascinating question by peeling back the layers of a man driven by a poignant mix of optimism and fear. The result is both insightful history and an astonishingly compelling psychological portrait of an anxious introvert who struggled to be a transformative statesman.
In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History
An extraordinarily powerful journey that is both political and personal... An important book for everyone in America to read.
Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age
by Brad Smith, Carol Ann Browne
This is a colorful and insightful insiders’ view of how technology is both empowering us and threatening us. From privacy to cyberattacks, this timely book is a useful guide for how to navigate the digital future.
Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else)
by Ken Auletta
Now more than ever, advertising is the lifeblood that sustains most journalism, television, and entertainment. But with the advent of Google, Facebook, and other digital players, the advertising industry is being fundamentally disrupted. Ken Auletta brilliantly chronicles this drama with his usual combination of behind-the-scenes… Read the full quote
Now more than ever, advertising is the lifeblood that sustains most journalism, television, and entertainment. But with the advent of Google, Facebook, and other digital players, the advertising industry is being fundamentally disrupted. Ken Auletta brilliantly chronicles this drama with his usual combination of behind-the-scenes reporting filled with colorful characters, surprising revelations, and judicious insights. This riveting book shows again why Auletta is the premier reporter of our era on the fascinating and ever-changing worlds of communications and media.
Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now
This is a wondrously thought-provoking book. Unlike other social theorists who either mindlessly decry or celebrate the digital age, Rushkoff explores how it has caused a focus on the immediate moment that can be both disorienting or energizing. In an era that seems intent on… Read the full quote
This is a wondrously thought-provoking book. Unlike other social theorists who either mindlessly decry or celebrate the digital age, Rushkoff explores how it has caused a focus on the immediate moment that can be both disorienting or energizing. In an era that seems intent on deleting the art of narrative, Rushkoff creates a compelling narrative of the way we now live.
Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America
Following his definitive look at Teddy Roosevelt’s passion for wilderness conservation, Brinkley now brings us a colorful, exciting narrative of how his cousin FDR carried on the cause. Brinkley gives us a wonderful, timely new perspective on FDR; his wife, Eleanor; and the dedicated environmentalists around them.
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
by Jon Meacham
This is a brilliant, fascinating, timely, and above all profoundly important book.
The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos
The Space Barons by Christian Davenport, a Washington Post reporter, is an exciting narrative filled with colorful reporting and sharp insights. The book sparkles because of Davenport’s access to the main players and his talent for crisp storytelling.