Best Political Books – Understand the world we live in

There certainly isn’t a shortage of political books, especially as there is always so much to learn. With each new president, there are new challenges, new experiences, and new things to be discussed with the masses. Whether you’re looking for more information into a particular party or you want to read opinionated pieces on the current state of the union, there’s certainly a novel for everyone.

Politics can frequently be challenging to follow, especially if you don’t tune into the news every day. However, many find that there isn’t an excuse for not being up to date about the current state of their country, which is where these books come into play.

We recommend finding an assortment of the best political books that are partisan – both sides – and non-partisan. With this, you can differentiate between what is factual and what is based solely on opinion. With a more diversified understanding of how politics works and what it means to represent a particular party (or none at all), you can make more well-informed decisions.

As a voter, it is not only your right but also your responsibility to choose a representative that you believe will do the best for your nation. However, without knowing much about politics, it cannot be effortless. The vast knowledge brought to you by experts can open your mind and bring you into new realms that you never knew existed.

The variety of political books on the market will appease any reader’s appetite, as you can find factual accounts from past presidents, candid memoirs from people who served under the heads of state, and more.

We also recommend titles that talk about current and relevant issues, such as immigration, gender, and race, to get a clearer understanding of where the country stands. Not to mention, plenty of these books are filled with historical factoids to teach you more about the development of the nation and what has made it what it is today.

There is much more to the best political books than to be coffee table reads for guests. With these, you can become a better citizen with all of the information you are bound to take in on every page.

All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class

Inside story of how Britain decided to exit the EU. Economic self-destruction or national liberation? Repercussions to play out for decades.

Marc Andreessen

Co-Founder/Andreessen Horowitz

The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age

This year’s fierce election battle prompted me to pick up this 2014 book, by an Oxford University scholar who has studied political leadership—good, bad, and ugly—for more than 50 years. Brown shows that the leaders who make the biggest contributions to history and humanity generally are not the ones we perceive to be “strong leaders.” Instead, they tend to be the ones who collaborate, delegate, and negotiate—and recognize that no one person can or should have all the answers. Brown could not have predicted how resonant his book would become in 2016.

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

The Politicians and the Egalitarians: The Hidden History of American Politics

This stimulating book provides a major new interpretation of the alliance between egalitarian social movements and partisan politics to achieve some of the most notable liberal victories in the American past. Sean Wilentz has done more than anyone else to blend social and political history in a manner that offers powerful new insights.

James M. McPherson

Pulitzer Prize Winner & Author of Battle Cry of Freedom

Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age

He may have the country’s finest experts at his fingertips, but it still doesn’t hurt to read up on environmental and economic issues.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government (Princeton Studies in Political Behavior)

Democracy for Realists is an eye-opening and sober look at the data on democracy and what makes it effective/ineffective. Hint: people are stupid.

Mark Manson

Founder/MarkManson.net

Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations

Read some wonderful and enlightening books this year.

Doug McMillon

CEO/Walmart

Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?

Is the future knowable, and by whom? All pundits and commentators should publish their prediction track records, yet don't. What to pay attention to and what to ignore.

Marc Andreessen

Co-Founder/Andreessen Horowitz

American Government 101: From the Continental Congress to the Iowa Caucus, Everything You Need to Know About US Politics

Question: What books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path?

Answer:

• Anything by Peter Senge.
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz
• Once you are Lucky, Twice you are good – Sara Lacey
• Revolutionary Wealth – Alvin Toffler
• Black Swan – Taleb
• Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, by Ellen Pao.
• Creative Class – Richard Florida
• Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace
• Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis
• American Government 101: From the Continental Congress to the Iowa Caucus, Everything You Need to Know About US Politics – Kathleen Spears
• The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff.
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
• Any book by Herman Hesse
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

Audrey Russo

President & CEO/Pittsburgh Technology Council

Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy

In the last 10% of Political Order and Political Decay. It’s been about 50 hours of listening between that volume and the first, The Origins of Political Order. So quite the undertaking. But we’ve finally progressed all the way through the history of political order and arrived at Fukuyama’s diagnosis of modern day societies. It’s a truly epic journey, and one that’s uniquely timely to the current upheaval. “Things are so crazy now” is only something you’d say in the absence of a historical perspective. These books give you just that and then some.

David Heinemeier Hansson

Co-Founder/Basecamp

Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes

It completely changed my view of chimpanzees and Homo sapiens alike. Probably the most funny science book I have ever read. A must-read for politicians of all species!

Yuval Noah Harari

Historian

How Democracies Die

As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018 list.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything

For my current venture into volunteer organization, Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything by Becky Bond and Zack Exley is a more recent example of something that validated my business idea. Many of the strategy ideas I guessed at, namely decentralized and distributed organization techniques that form the basis of Zeall, emerged in this book by two of the top organizers of the 2016 Bernie Sanders Presidential Campaign.

Lucas Morales

Founder & CEO/Zeall.us

The Political Economy of Participatory Economics

Depending on your interest and goals, if you are like me and always looking for the trends in the big picture then I highly recommend being an active contrarian reader. Read what no one else is reading. Your goal is to think outside the box. To look at the world and ask “why hasn’t this been solved?” And that gives you a roadmap as to what opportunities may exist for your entrepreneurial efforts. So to that, here’s a snapshot, in no particular order, of what might help you push your intellectual boundaries:

• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
• 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
• Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future by Paul Mason
• Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
• Who Gets What--And Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design by Alvin E. Roth
• The Political Economy of Participatory Economics by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel
• The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism by Jeremy Rifkin
• Why America Misunderstands the World by Paul R. Pillar
• A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
• Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Lucas Morales

Founder & CEO/Zeall.us

The New Power Base Selling: Master The Politics, Create Unexpected Value and Higher Margins, and Outsmart the Competition

Power Base Selling has been the most pragmatic and effective guide in my professional services career. Jim and Ryan's new concept of Unexpected Value is fundamental to differentiating your product and defending your margins.

Patrick Nicolet

CEO/Infrastructure Services

A Nation of Wusses: How America’s Leaders Lost the Guts to Make Us Great

One of the shorter, fun books I read this summer is A Nation of Wusses: How America’s Leaders Lost the Guts to Make Us Great. It’s by Ed Rendell, who was district attorney, mayor of Philadelphia and then two-term governor of Pennsylvania. If you’ve heard him speak or seen him on TV, you know he’s a colorful and outspoken observer of political life in the U.S. No surprise, then, that this book is colorful too,with lots of great stories. His theme is that leaders shouldn’t just tell people what they want to hear. But because politics has become so intensely partisan, too often our political leaders seem to be afraid to tell us the truth and to actually lead us in making the hard choices we need to face up to, on issues like education reform and the federal deficit. As a mayor and governor, Rendell faced up to some very messed-up budget situations and made some smart trade-offs. I thought his point of view was really refreshing. He makes a good point about how politics has changed in ways that make it harder for leaders to emerge and to truly lead.

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling

On the bus/in the plane with the Hillary campaign. Revealing in many dimensions at once, and highly entertaining. Best book on the 2016 campaign so far?

Marc Andreessen

Co-Founder/Andreessen Horowitz

The Fight to Vote

Through this book, Michael Waldman delivers a message every American needs to hear. The struggle for the right to vote is not over. It is still being waged even today. We must use it or we can lose it.

John Lewis

Author

Why Liberalism Failed

As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018 list.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy

Max Weber Protestant Ethic, and Karl Marx's Capital had a huge impact on me. If you read Marx with a critical critique you can see that he's laid out a fantastic framework on how capitalism works, I do disagree with his core premise (capitalism being bad) so I took it as a great way to understand how I could operate inside of a capitalist economy. Weber on the other hand shows you exactly how to get ahead in the world and was critical to me understanding how we reward value creators in western society.

Liam Martin

Co-founder & CMO/Time Doctor & Staff.com

Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century

A few of my favorite bios for the new book. #whatimreading

Robert Greene

Author

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