bookshelf

a list of books on my bookshelf, lectures, and channels that I believe are essential for understanding our increasingly complex world.

The Network State - Balaji Srinivasan
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed - James C. Scott
End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration - Peter Turchin
The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides, Robert Strassler
Responsible Parties - Ian Shapiro, Frances Rosenbluth
The Wolf at the Door: The Menace of Economic Insecurity and How to Fight It - Ian Shapiro, Michael Graetz
The Politics of Resentment - Katherine Cramer
The Entrepreneurial State - Mariana Mazzucato
Nation Building, State Building, and Economic Development - SCM Paine
States and Social Revolutions - Theda Skocpol
Exit, Voice, and Loyalty - Albert Hirschman
Capital in the Twenty-First Century - Thomas Piketty
The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs Private Sector Myths - Mariana Mazzucato
The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment is Reshaping Africa - Irene Yuan Sun
Identities, Affiliations and Allegiances - Seyla Benhabib, Ian Shapiro, Danilo Petranovic
The Shcok Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism - Naomi Klein
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 - Anne Applebaum
A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm Sullivan and Cromwell - Nancy Lisagor, Frank Lipsius
Theory of Games and Economic Behavior - John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 - Alfred Thayer Mahan
The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy - Russell Weigley
The Wars for Asia: 1911-1949 - SCM Paine
Modern China - SCM Paine, Bruce Elleman
The New Makers of Modern Strategy - Hal Brands et al.
Allies at War: The Soviet, American, and British Experience: 1939-1945 - Theodore Wilson et al.
The Soviet Theory of Reflexive Control in Historical and Psychocultural Perspective - Diane Chotikul
The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
The Discourses on Livy - Niccolo Machiavelli
The Moral Foundations of Politics - Ian Shapiro
From Quills to Tweets - Andrea Dew, Marc Genest, SCM Paine
The 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene
The 33 Strategies of War - Robert Greene
The Art of War - Sun Tzu, Samuel B. Griffith
On War - Carl von Clausewitz
Centuries of Security: Chinese, Russian and U.S. Continental versus Maritime Approaches - SCM Paine
Republic - Plato
Natural Right and History - Leo Strauss
The City and Man - Leo Strauss
The Complete Works of Aristotle - Aristotle, Jonathan Barnes
Mao Tse-Tung on Guerilla Warfare - Mao Tse-Tung, Samuel B. Griffith
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More - Alexei Yurchak
Nothing is True and Everything is Possible - Peter Pomerantsev
The Origins of Totalitarianism - Hannah Arendt
Eichmann in Jerusalem - Hannah Arendt
The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 - Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels
The Book of the Courtier - Baldassare Castiglione
Propaganda - Edward Bernays
Crystallizing Public Opinion - Edward Bernays
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Shoshana Zuboff
Routledge Handbook of the Influence Industry
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life - Walter Isaacson
Capitalist Realism - Mark Fisher
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
The Art of Community - Charles Vogl
Tribes - Seth Godin
The Power Broker - Robert A. Caro
Simulacra and Simulation - Jean Baudrillard
Frames of Mind - Howard Gardner
Autocracy Inc - Anne Applebaum
Hackers and Painters - Paul Graham
Zero to One - Peter Thiel
The Lean Startup - Eric Ries
The Innovator's Dilemma - Clayton Christensen
The Startup Owner's Manual - Steve Blank
The Mom Test - Rob Fitzpatrick
The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz
Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug
Influence - Robert Cialdini
Monetizing Innovation - Madhavan Ramanujam, Georg Tacke
Founders at Work - Jessica Livingston
Build - Tony Fadell
Platform Scale - Sangeet Paul Choudary
Talent - Tyler Cowen, Daniel Gross
The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan
The Rough Riders - Theodore Roosevelt
The Creative Act: A Way of Being - Rick Rubin
Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl
Night - Elie Wiesel
Margin of Safety - Seth Klarman
The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers & Acquisitions - Joshua Rosenbaum, Joshua Pearl
Investment Banks, Hedge Funds, and Private Equity - David Stowell
Breaking BUD/S - D.H. Xavier
The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel van der Kolk