Ringo comes out well, the others not so much. W.W. Norton; 272 pages; $26.95 and £19.99. Little, Brown; 368 pages; $28. The most recommended books in our interviews include Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, David Landes’s The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Charles Kindleberger’s Manias, Panics, and Crashes, and, of course, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Black Spartacus. Jonathan Gray. 20. By Tom Burgis. Oneness vs. the 1%: Shattering Illusions,…. Travelling the 1,000-mile length of the Magdalena, on foot, horseback, by car or—often—by boat, he has produced an enchanting chronicle blending culture, ecology and history. Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2021. Alaric the Goth: An Outsider's History of the Fall of Rome, Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World, Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West, Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot: The Great Mistake of Scottish Independence, Why the Germans Do it Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture, Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World, House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family, Kiss Myself Goodbye: The Many Lives of Aunt Munca, Underground Asia: Global Revolutionaries and the Overthrow of Europe's Empires in the East, Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, A House in the Mountains: The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism, India's Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi, Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade That Reinvented Philosophy, A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. Caroline Criado Perez. As well as bisecting the country, the waterway is “the wellspring of Colombian music, literature, poetry and prayer”, says the author, a Canadian anthropologist and explorer. Allen Lane; £25. By Barack Obama. They were about corruption, revolutionaries, Glasgow in the 1980s, John Maynard Keynes and musical lives. By Douglas Stuart. Fourth Estate; £12.99. Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and Op-Ed Columnist at the New York Times. The Price of Peace. Alaric the Goth. “There are so many ways to haunt a person,” the author writes, “or a life.”, The Ministry for the Future. One of her brothers was murdered in Auschwitz. My Dark Vanessa. Another leapt from a train, joined the resistance and later became friends with Picasso. A brilliant study of Asian revolutionary movements in the first decades of the 20th century, showing how a collective consciousness emerged in the liminal cracks of empire—in steerage class on steamships, in the doss houses of port cities and radical circles in London and Paris. No Rules Rules. By Carissa Véliz. Random House Business; £20. Many books have tried to explain the rise and ruthlessness of Vladimir Putin; this one is the closest yet to a definitive account. A leading sociologist and scientist considers the history of plagues and how some countries blundered in their responses to covid-19. The Best Books of 2020. Picador; £14.99. Kiss Myself Goodbye. Apollo’s Arrow. By Barbara Demick. Atlantic Monthly Press; 336 pages; $28. From the beginning of human civilisation, religion, art and science have been preoccupied by the stars and other celestial wonders. The universe had a beginning and, one day, it will end. By Katie Mack. Scribner; 352 pages; $28. The Myth of Chinese Capitalism. These trends are welcome, he argues: a lack of low-hanging fruit means you have successfully picked it all. By Emily St John Mandel. At times horrifying, at others seeming almost to spin out of control, the book is powered by a hopeful yet illusionless vision of the future. Read 70 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. By Sudhir Hazareesingh. Underground Asia. By Nicholas Christakis. All rights reserved. You must have a goodreads account to vote. The Overlook Press; 240 pages; $26. It’s business history. Viking; £35. Random House; 352 pages; $28. Bantam Press; 288 pages; £12.99. House of Glass. Check Price on Amazon. on February 24, 2020 / Alexandra Nemeth. Atlantic Books; £20, The subject of this astute book was a giant of British science. Invisible Women. The author, a composer himself, peppers his narrative with penetrating insights into the music. A committed communist, he was slow to acknowledge the Soviet Union’s depredations. This is a thought-provoking look at how fascination with the heavens has shaped human culture, and still does. Orders for this item purchased through shop.economist.com will be for delivery to the US/Canada only. By Jo Marchant. Sweet Dreams by Dylan Jones. Written in galloping blank verse, it tells of the very first Kikuyu and their passionate attachment to Mount Kenya, the home of their god, Ngai. The Man Who Knew. Shuggie Bain. This book beautifully captures both the murkiness and turpitude involved. Atlantic Books; 448 pages; $24.95 and £20. Allen Lane; £20. Knopf; 432 pages; $30. Winner 2020. Despite her solemn theme, her humour and eclectic references (from Shakespeare to “Battlestar Galactica”) carry the book along. 50 Economics Classics: Your shortcut to the most important ideas on capitalism, finance, and the global economy (50 Classics) Save. From Brexit to Coronavirus to Black Lives Matter, 2020 has been an eventful year politically, to say the least. By buying a product through these links, Smithsonian magazine may earn a commission. By Hadley Freeman. The War on Cash: How Banks and a Power…. Simon & Schuster; 352 pages; $26. Chatto & Windus; £20. It recasts his contributions to 20th-century intellectual life in a way both enlightening and truer to his thought than most accounts given in the classroom. By Tim Harper. Virgin Books; £20. Toggle navigation | BLOG. On this view, a massive concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few is used to quash dissent and project force abroad. Simon & Schuster; 352 pages; $28. St Martin’s Press; 288 pages; $28.99 and £22.99. He served in the trenches during the first world war and wrote prodigiously. The revolutionaries’ big truth, says the author, was that Asia lay “at the forefront of human futures”. Her tale includes glimpses of Silicon Valley’s weirdness, and an account of Instagram’s sale to Facebook—and its sour aftermath. Allen Lane; £35. By Amy Stanley. list created December 9th, 2020 Chatto & Windus; £16.99. This book richly evokes the intellectual origins and context of a speech that remains a model of political magnanimity. Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes. After the country capitulated to the Allies in 1943, around 80,000 partisans in northern Italy died in a fight for freedom against fascist loyalists and their Nazi backers. Translated by Orr Scharf. The 100 Most Influential Economists Online (2020) #1. Here, the best nonfiction books of 2020. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 640 pages; $35. by. Bodley Head; £25. Every Drop of Blood. Winner 2017. Despite the teasing title—a jab at the author’s native Britain—it acknowledges Germany’s problems, from creaking infrastructure to somnolent foreign policy. Canongate; £16.99. By Yaniv Iczkovits. Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and…. Echoes of Russian and Yiddish literature resound in this delightful picaresque, but you need not hear them to enjoy it. The Perfect Nine. John Carreyrou. Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger all gazed thrillingly into the post-war cultural abyss; as a Nazi stooge, Heidegger jumped in. Its ultimate theme—the intersection of politics and personal enrichment—is one of the most important stories of the age. By Wolfram Eilenberger. By Tom Burgis. William Collins; £20. Allen Lane; £16.99. History may mostly be written by the victors, but the destruction of Rome by the far less literate Goths in 410AD is an exception. Category. It covers a brewing scandal over the provision of irreversible treatments, whether surgical or pharmaceutical, to teenagers. Published in Britain as “One, Two, Three, Four”; Fourth Estate; £20. A Dominant Character. Scribner; 240 pages; $26. Sarah Frier. It’s a history of one of the first companies to use computers in a systematic way to try to make forecasts. All the books listed for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award. By Ferdinand Mount. Tinder Press; £18.99. They started out doing political forecasting. Fragmentary records have until now meant Toussaint Louverture was a shadowy historical character; this reconstruction gives his political, military and intellectual accomplishments their due. 150 Glimpses of the Beatles. Alaric, their leader, served in the Roman army—before turning on the oppressors. Barron's AP Microeconomics/Macroeconomics,…. Burnt Sugar. No Filter. By a Pulitzer-prizewinning playwright. By John Kampfner. Magdalena: River of Dreams. In this telling Mozart was a fundamentally happy man, a genius with an enduringly childish sense of humour. To be published in America by Schocken in February; $28.95. This breezy but comprehensive paean argues that Germany’s culture of consensus and stability has bred a resilience unusual among crisis-prone democracies. The Book 50 Economic Classics by Tom Butler Bowden is less of a book about economics, and more of a book about the best books of economics. William Collins; £20. A dazzling, part-autobiographical tale about growing up as a Pakistani-American through the age of 9/11 and then Donald Trump. Greed is Dead: Politics after Individualism, by Paul Collier and John Kay, Allen Lane, RRP£16.99, 208 pages. By Avni Doshi. Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered towards the end of the civil war, is etched on the wall of his memorial in Washington. In it, author Robert Kiyosaki shares his story of growing up with "two dads"—his real father and his best friend's father, or his "rich dad"—and how both men influenced Kiyosaki's views on investing. Western ideas raced back to Asia, undermining colonial rule. MacLehose Press; 528 pages; £18.99. B. S. Haldane, The Human Cosmos: A Secret History of the Stars, Privacy is Power: Reclaiming Democracy in the Digital Age, Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live, No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention, The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World, Fully Grown: Why a Stagnant Economy Is a Sign of Success. Only the decent, liberal Ernst Cassirer, “thinker of the possible”, entirely kept his head. Fourth Estate; £16.99. The Slaughterman’s Daughter. By Abigail Shrier. Fully Grown. Resalat Rasheed 10 Mar 2020. By Andrei Zorin. The Human Cosmos. The best book I read in 2020 was published nearly 80 years ago. By Ayad Akhtar. This richly told coming-of-age story, set in the deprived Glasgow of the 1980s, won this year’s Booker prize. Picador; £14.99, This immersive novel’s main character is a bartender who becomes the trophy wife of a con-man, then a cook on a container ship. You are here : Home >> Socially … This year, we were captivated by stories from literary icons, debut novelists, and more. The lineaments of Tolstoy’s astonishing life are well known: the libertinism, the remorse, the masterpieces, the infamously unhappy marriage and death at the train station in Astapovo. Little, Brown; 384 pages; $29 and £20. Harvard University Press; 240 pages; $45 and £36.95. Dutton; 400 pages; $28. Drawing on the author’s close access to insiders at Instagram, this is a lively and revealing view of how the world came to see itself through the platform’s lens. High thinking and low politics meet in this lively group portrait of four revolutionary German-language philosophers in the 1920s. A powerful tale that will strike a chord with many women—but really ought to be read by men. The New Press; 240 pages; $23.99. Translated by Shaun Whiteside. Winner 2018. Your browser does not support the