100 Best History Books of All Time

Barack Obama

Former USA President

Fact or fiction, the president knows that reading keeps the mind sharp. He also delved into these non-fiction reads. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Both Melinda and I read this one, and it has sparked lots of great conversations at our dinner table. Harari takes on a daunting challenge: to tell the entire history of the human race in just 400 pages. He also writes about our species today and how artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and other technologies will change us in the future. Although I found things to disagree with—especially Harari’s claim that humans were better off before we started farming—I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who’s interested in the history and future of our species. [source]

Reid Hoffman

CEO/LinkedIn

A grand theory of humanity. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Fascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history. [source]

Daniel Ek

A brilliant Pulitzer Prize-winning book about how the modern world was formed, analyzing how societies developed differently on different continents. [source]

Simon Sinek

Author

I’m a fan of books that challenge our assumptions, and Diamond offers us a new and remarkably simple way of looking at our world. Learning to challenge existing assumptions is core to effective leadership for it trains us to keep an open mind. [source]

Lisa Ling

I credit this book with propelling me to dig deeper, and to not always believe the narrative. [source]

Alex Honnold

Totally changed the way I look at politics. [source]

Alice Little

I remember being a fourth grader and trying to check out this book and being told it was grossly inappropriate and going so far as to have my parents take it to the school board and petition for me to be allowed to read this book. [source]

Catalina Penciu

I'm a huge fan of personal stories and biographies like this one. [source]

Tim Fargo

@Quixoticnance Good point, Nancy. The museum is a powerful experience, esp. when you've read her book. [source]

Amanda Palmer

Amanda Palmer recommended this book in the book "Tools of Titans". [source]

David Goldberg

What I really liked about A Short History of Nearly Everything is that it gives an excellent account of a lot of the personalities and the interconnectedness of important discoveries in cosmology and elsewhere. He does such a great job of bringing together our understanding of cosmology, evolution, paleontology, and geology in a very, very fluid way. [source]

Fabrice Grinda

I have lots of books to recommend, but they are not related to my career path. The only one that is remotely related is Peter Thiel’s Zero to One. That said here are books I would recommend. [source]

Tony Robbins

Life Coach

Another book that I’ve read dozens of times. It taught me that if you change the meaning, you change everything. Meaning equals emotion, and emotion equals life. [source]

Dustin Moskovitz

Co-founder/Facebook and Asana

Dustin Moskovitz recommended this book on Twitter. [source]

Jimmy Fallon

TV Host

I read it while spending ten days in the ICU of Bellevue hospital trying to reattach my finger from a ring avulsion accident in my kitchen. It talks about the meaning of life, and I believe you come out a better person from reading it. [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

The Oval office can be a lonely place, so reading about your forefather’s experience could only help. “The biographies have been useful, because I do think that there’s a tendency, understandable, to think that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult,” said President Obama in an interview. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

I loved Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and highly recommend this one too. [source]

Kobe Bryant

Basketball Player / LA Lakers

I loved Team of Rivals, and Leadership really built on the things I had taken away from that book. Moving from basketball to building a company, I needed to learn new and different leadership skills, and Goodwin outlines the different skill-sets of Lincoln, both Roosevelts, and Lyndon Johnson, accessibly. [source]

Travis Kalanick

Travis Kalanick changed his Twitter avatar to Alexander Hamilton after having read this book. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

Related and with equal weight, I want to recommend George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon by Stephen W. Sears (a biography of the talented but utterly delusional General George McClellan), Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S.C. Gwynne (a biography of the brilliant but manic Stonewall Jackson) and Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton (an equally brilliant, more accomplished but equally tragic founding father). All these books made me angry, sad, and confused. But they also made me look inward and taught me quite a bit. [source]

Fabrice Grinda

I read books for fun. It just so happens that they often are also insightful, but I would not say any specific book had a huge influence on me. Some biographies like Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow are inspiring, but it’s not as though they changed my career path. I knew I wanted to be an Internet entrepreneur from a very young age. [source]

Johanna Reiss

Elie Wiesel wrote..that he was considering running into the barbed wire once, but he didn’t because his father needed him. [source]

Steven Katz

Probably the best known memoir that has been written about the experience of the death camps. [source]

Adam Conover

@TheBaltimoreSon @CharlesCMann Sure it! A total revolution in my understanding of history, all in one book. Amazing stuff. [source]

Colin Calloway

The book provides a huge hemispheric overview. [source]

Scott Keyes

It’s one of those books that takes everything you thought you knew about the history of European colonialists and indigenous groups in the Americas and turns it on its head. Just a fascinating deep-dive into early American history that questions a lot of dogma we were taught in school. [source]

A.J. Jacobs

Great writer. [source]

Carl Zimmer

Yes. This is a fascinating book on so many different levels. It is really compelling as the story of the author trying to uncover the history of the woman from whom all these cells came. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Harari’s new book is as challenging and readable as Sapiens. Rather than looking back, as Sapiens does, it looks to the future. I don’t agree with everything the author has to say, but he has written a thoughtful look at what may be in store for humanity. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

I certainly wouldn’t consider myself a big reader of paleontology or anthropology – not good words for us dyslexics! – but I enjoy learning about how society has unfolded and history has developed in an exciting, easy to read way. The sequel, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, is a fascinating look into the future too. While these aren’t traditional business or leadership books, they are all about people – and learning how to work with, live with, interact with people and get the best out of them is what leadership is all about. [source]

Vinod Khosla

Co-Founder/Sun Microsystem

Not that I agree with all of it, but it is still mind-bending speculation about our future as a follow-up to a previous favorite, Sapiens. It’s directionally right. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

50 plus years old, this is a story that more than stands the test of time. Sir Ernest Shackleton makes his daring attempt to cross Antarctic continent but his crew and boat are trapped in the ice flows. What follows are 600 days of harrowing survival, first from the elements, then from hunger, then from the sea as he makes a daring attempt in a small lifeboat to reach land 650 miles away, then again as he struggles over land and mountains to bring relief to his men. And when he finally arrives with it, Shackleton simply boards them on the boat and returns home as if nothing had happened. He was an immensely brave man in the midst of terrible adversity and we see this so clearly in a book based on the remarkable diaries of his men. He never quit, never seemed to despair. This book (and his life) were living proof of his family motto: “Fortitudine vincimus” (By endurance we conquer). [source]

Bryan Johnson

How I want to behave in life. [source]

Mark Moses

Truly inspiring story of determination, grit and beating all odds. [source]

Doris Kearns Goodwin

So beautifully written. But more importantly, for me, she was writing about battles and military stuff and things that you don’t imagine that sometimes a woman might be so adept at. [source]

Erik Martin

This book started my obsession with WWI, illustrating how drastically the world went from interrelated monarchies and cavalry charges to chemical warfare between modern nation states. If you want to see what disruption looks like, there's no greater period in human history. [source]

Matt Calkins

The best way to understand how the world resolves its conflicts and its tensions is by looking at how a conflict that has been studied thoroughly, like World War I, unfolded and resolved. Business is like this too. If anyone were to ever get to the heart of Coke vs. Pepsi, they would see a parade of mistakes in the same way World War I looks in retrospect—so many ways you could have done better. [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

The biographies have been useful, because I do think that there’s a tendency, understandable, to think that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult. [source]

Antonio Villaraigosa

I love biographies and this one in particular strikes me. I don’t believe John Adams comes immediately to mind as one of the great presidents, but he was. Students of history know he had a hand in so many of the founding documents we remember today. [source]

Professor Frank Mcdonough

Christmas is coming and if you want to give a thought-provoking book to that history fan in your life then the recent books by the brilliant @peterfrankopan will satisfy. Some write books, this guy changes perceptions. https://t.co/gWZWZnv5TN [source]

Raoul Pal

@The92ers @zerohedge It’s fascinating. The Peter Frankopan book on the Silk Roads told history well from the perspective of Iran in particular [source]

Reid Hoffman

CEO/LinkedIn

Reid read Carl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu as a boy, which informed his strategic thinking. [source]

Evan Spiegel

After meeting Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel immediately bought every Snapchat employee a copy of 'The Art Of War'. [source]

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Astrophysicist, Author & Science Communicator

Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on planet? … The Art of War (Sun Tsu) to learn that the act of killing fellow humans can be raised to an art. If you read all of the above works you will glean profound insight into most of what has driven the history of the western world. [source]

Satya Nadella

CEO/Microsoft

Nadella calls this tale with a local Seattle connection—it involves an underdog University of Washington crew team and the 1936 Berlin Olympics—”A wonderful illustration of the importance of teamwork, which was a core part of my focus out of the gate as CEO. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

Another great narrative nonfiction out this year that I hope you’ll like is: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown. [source]

Gail Kelly

Former CEO/ Westpac

Member of the Group of 30, and former CEO of Westpac will be spending her summer months reading a memoir, a novel and historical non-fiction. [source]

Daniel Hamermesh

At a time of increased danger of totalitarianism in the U.S., reading a history of an insider’s view of its growth in Germany in the 1930s gives a good perspective on our contemporary problems, as well as being fascinating history and biography in its own right. [source]

Steve Schmidt

@egayle333 Ellyn, with respect Hitler was always clear about his intent. A great book to read from a US perspective is In the Garden of Beasts. Trump is much more analogous to Mussolini. [source]

Casey Neistat

Founder/368 Creative Space

Aside from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Casey's favorite book is The Second World War by John Keegan. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

I forget who said it but I heard someone say that Catcher in the Rye was to young white boys what the Autobiography of Malcolm X was to young black boys. Personally, I prefer that latter over the former. I would much rather read about and emulate a man who is born into adversity and pain, struggles with criminality, does prison time, teaches himself to read through the dictionary, finds religion and then becomes an activist for Civil Rights before being gunned down by his former supporters when he tempers the hate and anger that had long defined parts of his message. [source]

David Coogan

His memoir describes that process of transformation from a common narrative of street hustler and limited opportunities, struggling in a racist society, to this radicalization in part through literacy, in part through literature and religion. [source]

Ben Horowitz

Co-founder/Andreessen Horowitz

Unexpectedly the most interesting book on the topic of how you think about inclusion. [source]

Daymond John

Founder/FUBU

Daymond John said this is one of his most-recommended books. [source]

Lisa Ling

Genghis Khan was a great democratizer. His Mongol Empire conquered more territory in 25 years than the Romans did in 200. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

I found this to be an interesting follow-up to the excellent Guns, Germs, and Steel. It examines the downfall of some of history's greatest civilizations. [source]

Daniel Headrick

I found Jared Diamond’s book Collapse more valuable in influencing my own thinking, because it shows the importance of culture in determining how humans deal with environmental threats. …….The author investigates the successes and failures of a number of civilisations which had reached a crisis point, and looks at why some succeeded and others hadn’t. [source]

David Pilling

This is a warning that societies can do this. We, as a human society, could do this if we’re not careful. If we stretch the earth beyond its planetary limits, we could ruin the soil, we could ruin the ocean, we could ruin the air, and we could drain the ocean of fish. He sees evidence all around that we’re doing precisely that. He sees a limit to technology to solve our problems. [source]

Steve Crawshaw

Large parts of the Belgian establishment loathe this book. It tells, as its sub-title says, ‘a story of greed, terror and heroism’. It lays bare the absolute fiction that King Leopold’s fief in the Congo was based on some philanthropic urge – a line that Leopold managed to peddle with extraordinary success at the time. I don’t know if what Leopold did would be called ‘genocide’ today or not. But millions died under his rule, often in horrific circumstances, invisible to the rest of the world. Modern communications didn’t exist. [source]

Suzannah Lipscomb

This is an incredibly powerful, horrifying, and utterly brilliant study of Belgian colonialism of the Congo and the brutality and genocide that followed in its wake. [source]

Naval Ravikant

CEO & Co-Founder/AngelList

Great book. I really like how it summarizes some of the larger themes of history. Very incisive and, unlike most history books, is actually kind of small and it covers a lot of ground. [source]

Ray Dalio

Founder/Bridgewater Associates

The book I’d give every graduating senior in college or high school would be 'Lessons From History'. This is the Durants, they were maybe the greatest historians of all time. Anyway, of 5,000 years of history, probably wrote 5,000 pages on it, and they took this book - I think it’s 104 pages - and they took the themes of history, it could be from religion, natural resources, who knows, each one of these things, and they looked at it for themes of history through history. I think that, that would be great. [source]

Kevin Systrom

A great book. [source]

Bill Clinton

Former USA President

This is a good time for Ron Chernow’s fine biography of Ulysses S. Grant to appear… As history, it is remarkable, full of fascinating details sure to make it interesting both to those with the most cursory knowledge of Grant’s life and to those who have read his memoirs or any of several previous biographies… For all its scholarly and literary strengths, this book’s greatest service is to remind us of Grant’s significant achievements at the end of the war and after, which have too long been overlooked and are too important today to be left in the dark… As Americans continue the struggle to defend justice and equality in our tumultuous and divisive era, we need to know what Grant did when our country’s very existence hung in the balance. If we still believe in forming a more perfect union, his steady and courageous example is more valuable than ever. [source]

Jeremy Boudinet

I read Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses S. Grant at a crucial point in my life, when I was struggling with a few personal and professional career ups-and-downs. Grant is a fascinating character in U.S. history. His life was a dramatic roller coaster of major personal and professional triumphs that were inevitably followed by periods of massive failure and disappointment. Of course, all of this led up to his historic date with destiny as the winning General the U.S. desperately needed during the Civil War. An important takeaway from Grant's story is his primary character virtue - a stoic determination that ultimately carried him through periods of disenchantment and brought the Union victory in the Civil War. There's a lesson in there for all of us fighting in the trenches of business - we'll inevitably face some of the same ups-and-downs that Grant did. And we should aim to carry ourselves like he did. [source]

Charlamagne Tha God

Radio Presenter/The Breakfast Club

These are the books I recommend people to listen to on @applebooks. [source]

Marvin Liao

Partner/500 Startups

My list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make sense of life and Science fiction to picture what the future could be like (not always utopian). [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

There is no living writer (or person) who has been more influential to me than Robert Greene. I met him when I was 19 years old and he’s shaped me as a person, as a writer, as a thinker. You MUST read his books. His work on power and strategy are critical for anyone trying to accomplish anything. In life, power is force we are constantly bumping up against. People have power of over us, we seek power ourselves that we might be free enough and influential enough to accomplish our goals—so we must understand where power comes from, how it works and how to get it. But pure power is meaningless. It must be joined to mastery and purpose. So read his book Mastery so that you can figure your life’s task and how to dedicate yourself to it. [source]

Arianna Huffington

Founder/The Huffington Post

I find this book so inspirational and instructive, it lives on my nightstand. [source]

Chip Conley

I have given this book away to a number of people. [source]

Marvin Liao

Partner/500 Startups

My list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make sense of life and Science fiction to picture what the future could be like (not always utopian). [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

According to the president’s Facebook page and a 2008 interview with the New York Times, these titles are among his most influential forever favorites: Moby Dick, Herman Melville Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson Song Of Solomon, Toni Morrison Parting The Waters, Taylor Branch Gilead, Marylinne Robinson Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene The Quiet American, Graham Greene Cancer Ward, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Gandhi’s autobiography Working, Studs Terkel Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren [source]

Karl Rove

I think this is the greatest explanation, in one place, of the American constitution, of the essential underpinnings and structures that make American democracy possible. This is how to view the constitution in its proper perspective, as a document of limited government, and enormous personal freedom – as an attempt to understand human nature and draw on both its strengths and its weaknesses to achieve a community and nation. [source]

Casey Neistat

Founder/368 Creative Space

My favorite Jocko book. [source]

Timothy Ferriss

Author & Entrepreneur

Jocko is also the co-author of Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win — which I loved. [source]

Roger Ailes

CEO/Fox News

This is the SEAL Leadership book we have been waiting for. Poignant, powerful, practical. A must read for every leader. [source]

Antonio Eram

This book was recommended by , Founder of NETOPIA mobilPay, when asked for titles he would recommend to people interested in understanding the world around them. [source]

Dave Collum

I guess it is a good time to point out that "The Great Influenza" is a great book. If you think modern medicine would have mitigate this one, you haven't read the book. https://t.co/t4uHPgfLE6 [source]

Greg Dworkin

@heshsson yes1 brilliant book, which also explains flu better than most other things you will read [source]

Reese Witherspoon

Actress, Author, Founder/Hello Sunshine

Congrats @RonanFarrow on your incredible book #CatchandKill. Amazing investigative reporting and A real thrill ride of a read. 📚 [source]

Bastian Obermayer

I know I’m very late to this party, but: „Catch And Kill“ from the unrelenting @RonanFarrow is a hell of a read!! Need inspiration for how to hold the powerful accountable - or only looking for great entertainment? Get this book. https://t.co/y3xWkUTWhh [source]

Julie K. Brown

The parallels to the Jeffrey Epstein case are amazing in @RonanFarrow’s new book. Imagine this same predatory behavior and coverup among powerful men — not at a TV-media network — but at the highest levels of our government. #perversionofjustice https://t.co/wh2EJlg7iW [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

I loved this brilliant book about cancer. [source]

Timothy J. Jorgensen

A tremendous amount of cancer biology comes through in that book through the eyes of the victims and the people up close and personal. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

The disadvantaged world of poor white Appalachia described in this terrific, heartbreaking book is one that I know only vicariously. Vance was raised largely by his loving but volatile grandparents, who stepped in after his father abandoned him and his mother showed little interest in parenting her son. Against all odds, he survived his chaotic, impoverished childhood only to land at Yale Law School. While the book offers insights into some of the complex cultural and family issues behind poverty, the real magic lies in the story itself and Vance’s bravery in telling it. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

In terms of other surprising memoirs, I found JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy to be another well-written gem. [source]

Ben Shapiro

A very well-written book. … The whole thing is a critique of individual decisions. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Adam Hart-Davis

When Stephen Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time..his publisher told him that every equation he left in would halve the number of readers [source]

Anurag Ramdasan

My first intro into the world of physics and this got me completely hooked!

Caroline Paul

A beautiful book by a writer who fought in Vietnam. [source]

Eugene Gu

@realDonaldTrump Tim O’Brien is the author of the book The Things They Carried, which was about the Vietnam War. Must be very triggering for Trump since he dodged the draft multiple times with fraudulent doctors’ notes for fake bone spurs like a coward. [source]

Karl Marlantes

But when O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried he came down to absolute real brass tacks. It was no longer surreal, it was like here’s a list of what a grunt carries, an infantry soldier… [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

I think Leonardo was one of the most fascinating people ever. Although today he’s best known as a painter, Leonardo had an absurdly wide range of interests, from human anatomy to the theater. Isaacson does the best job I’ve seen of pulling together the different strands of Leonardo’s life and explaining what made him so exceptional. A worthy follow-up to Isaacson’s great biographies of Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs. [source]

Satya Nadella

CEO/Microsoft

Microsoft CEO has plunged into what must be an advance copy of Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, who has written biographies of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Ben Franklin. Isaacson’s biography is based on the Renaissance master’s personal notebooks, so you know we’re going to be taken into the creative mind of the genius. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

Truly excellent book about one of history’s all time greats. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

Wow, did you know that Moby Dick was based on a true story? There was a real whaling ship that was broken in half by an angry sperm whale. But it gets even more insane. The members of the crew escaped in three lifeboats, traveling thousands of miles at sea with little food and water until they slowly resorted to cannibalism(!) Besides being an utterly unbelievable story, this book also gives a great history into the whaling industry and the cowboys/entrepreneurs who led it. Definitely recommend and I promise my spoilers did not ruin anything. [source]

Eric Ripert

A fascinating study and still wholly relevant. [source]

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Astrophysicist, Author & Science Communicator

Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on planet? … The Prince (Machiavelli) to learn that people not in power will do all they can to acquire it, and people in power will do all they can to keep it. If you read all of the above works you will glean profound insight into most of what has driven the history of the western world. [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

Of course, this is a must read. Machiavelli is one of those figures and writers who is tragically overrated and underrated at the same time. Unfortunately that means that many people who read him miss the point and other people avoid him and miss out altogether. Take Machiavelli slow, and really read him. Also understand the man behind the book–not just as a masterful writer but a man who withstood heinous torture and exile with barely a whimper. Machiavelli is a glimpse into a time when power was literal and out for public viewing–when he talks about making an example of someone, he doesn’t mean calling them out, he means putting their head on a pike. Don’t let that scare you because we’re not as far from that world as we’d like to think. Deny that at your own peril. [source]

Alison Alvarez

I read the Ghost Map, a book about 1854 London Cholera outbreak. The outbreak was stopped because of a map created by Dr. John Snow. You can see hints of this map in some of our customer discovery tools because it was such an effective way of pinpointing a solution to a seemingly insurmountable problem. [source]

Seth Mnookin

The Ghost Map is a book that I oftentimes give to people to show them how cool and exciting and accessible and gripping stories about scientific discoveries can be. [source]

Stephen Evans

Johnson looks at London during a specific moment in time, August 1854, and focuses on a particular incident, an outbreak of cholera in Soho, in Central London. [source]

Mark Zuckerberg

Founder/Facebook

I read The New Jim Crow, a study of how the U.S. justice system disproportionately criminalizes and jails blacks and Latinos. Making our criminal justice system fairer and more effective is a huge challenge for our country. I’m going to keep learning about this topic, but some things are already clear: We can’t jail our way to a just society, and our current system isn’t working (adapted with permission from Facebook’s A Year of Books project). [source]

Peter Temin

The new Jim Crow that Michelle Alexander is talking about is mass incarceration. [source]

Dr. Phil Zimbardo

Talks about Eichmann as illustrating the banality of evil. [source]

Daniel Pick

The trial focused public attention on the individual high bureaucrat who had such personal responsibility in the Final Solution. There was, in a way, this enigma of what went on in Eichmann’s mind. [source]

David Bell

Political philosopher Arendt sees the work of the Nazis as the inevitable result of colonialism and industrialisation. [source]

Casey Neistat

Founder/368 Creative Space

just finished this yesterday. absolutely fantastic book. super recommend if you're into spycraft and espionage. bravo @BenMacintyre1 https://t.co/4OG4C1cBQ1 [source]

Amrullah Saleh

I had a great conversation with Ambassador Micheal Lund Jeppesen of @DKinAfghanistan . On the sidelines of our rich conversation we spoke of the Spy & the Traitor a great book in which Denmark's intelligence features highly. Proud of our alliance & cooperation. https://t.co/47GMb7ETWr [source]

Gady Epstein

Think I’ll read a non-China spy story for a change. Have heard great things about this book https://t.co/QcBa0ozRfG [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Harari is such a stimulating writer that even when I disagreed, I wanted to keep reading and thinking. All three of his books wrestle with some version of the same question: What will give our lives meaning in the decades and centuries ahead? So far, human history has been driven by a desire to live longer, healthier, happier lives. If science is eventually able to give that dream to most people, and large numbers of people no longer need to work in order to feed and clothe everyone, what reason will we have to get up in the morning? It’s no criticism to say that Harari hasn’t produced a satisfying answer yet. Neither has anyone else. So I hope he turns more fully to this question in the future. In the meantime, he has teed up a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the 21st century. [source]

Brajesh Kumar Singh

Harari, currently, the world's best historian and future analyst, is a gay! He is a Jew and writes his books in Hebrew! Got universal acclaim for his first book Sapiens, followed by Homo Deus and now the latest, 21 lessons for the 21st century! Salute to this genius, keep it up! https://t.co/s7R6oEbwiN [source]

Eh Bee Family

@harari_yuval This book is amazing. After every chapter...I pause...then freak out...then gather myself and keep reading. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

"Mukherjee wrote this book for a lay audience, because he knows that the new genome technologies are at the cusp of affecting us all in profound ways," Gates wrote. Mukherjee is what Gates calls a "quadruple threat." He's a practicing physician, teacher, researcher, and author. [source]

Amit Paranjape

@vikramsathaye @DrSidMukherjee @kiranshaw Great book. [source]

Bryan Johnson

A great book. [source]

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

I didn't read actually very many general business books, but I like biographies and autobiographies, I think those are pretty helpful. Actually, a lot of them aren't really business. … Isaacson's biography on Franklin is really good. Cause he was an entrepreneur and he sort of started from nothing, actually he was just like a run away kid, basically, and created his printing business and sort of his way of doing that, and then over time all of the science and politics. I'd say certain he's one of the few people I most admire. Franklin's pretty awesome. [source]

Brandon Stanton

The biography of Benjamin Franklin I read. [source]

Ed Zschau

Ed Zschau recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show". [source]

Ryan Holiday

Author

This book – of a long forgotten war – really functions as a biography and strategic analysis of some of the greatest minds in the history of war. We have Pericles, Brasidas, Alcibiades and many others. The anecdotes and the stories in this book are timeless. If you make your way all the way through it, I promise you will not forget it. Because the war was so long, involved so many different countries and was so varied (sea, land, siege, politics), it basically covers every type of situation you can think of. Think of this book as a textbook. Read it. [source]

Steven Pressfield

It is loaded with hardcore, timeless truths and the story it tells ought to be required reading for every citizen in a democracy. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Peter Snow

Yes, it certainly was the turning point of the war. Whatever we British may claim for the titanic fight on the Normandy beaches on D-Day, the Battle of Stalingrad was the real decider and Beevor’s account of it is simply brilliant. He combines a sense of strategic grasp with the incredibly detailed story of ordinary men’s experiences based on their own accounts. He did a huge amount of research into both the Russian side and the German side and he has come out with a masterly book. [source]

Audrey Kurth Cronin

Reading this one book gives you an excellent grasp of the human story and the context from which al-Qaeda emerged. [source]

Bryan Callen

I love this author. [source]

Lloyd Gardner

Wright looks at the linkage between the Egyptian Jihad and Al-Qaeda. It is a worthwhile book to read to try to understand the whole problem. [source]

Harsh Gupta

Have you read the 1491 and 1493 book series? About the discovery of Americas and what it meant. Fascinating stuff. Have been reading 1493 by Charles Mann on Kindle. [source]

Louise Fresco

Charles Mann has many interesting stories about many foods, but the main message is the importance of trade and the fact that there have been massive movements of foods backwards and forwards. [source]

Tim @Realscientists

I highly recommend @CharlesCMann's fantastic book "1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created" for perspective on Andean potato history and its outsized influence on world history (see: Irish potato famine). https://t.co/soMV0uzawP [source]

Bill Liao

The human world occurs in language so best get good at it! [source]

Bogdan Iordache

There are quite a few good business books on technology, and I'll list below some I find to be a good starting point. Personally, I like biographies a lot and I mostly read biographies of dead people, because those are the most honest ones. So because the computer age is still very young, there won't be a lot of biographies in my list. [source]

Scott Kupor

@JPHampstead @TimParksauthor Barbarians is a great book. Hope you enjoy mine! [source]

Lee Mckenzie

This is a great book and by far the best thing I have read for a while. If you are curious about the world in which we live, geopolitics or just fancy something a little different, you couldn’t do much better than this. Coffee optional! @Itwitius 👏🏻 #prisonersofgeography https://t.co/Gd3G2tDVyT [source]

Lucas Morales

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 [source]

Sunil Chhetri

@TaranaRaja The cover got me and I'm sure the book is very, very interesting! [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

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. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Bianca Belair

For #BHM I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 21st Book: Long Walk to Freedom -Nelson Mandela Read about his journey from childhood to the struggles of living under apartheid to becoming a freedom fighter & leader of his country. He is inspirational! https://t.co/bdvZu0kbh0 [source]

George Saunders

Please read this book. So smart, so timely. [source]

Maya Wiley

Prof. Tim Snyder, author of “In Tyranny” reminded us in that important little book that we must protect our institutions. #DOJ is one of our most important in gov’t for the rule of law. This is our collective house & #Barr should be evicted. https://t.co/PPxM9IMQUm [source]

Tom Holland

"There isn’t a page of this magnificent book that does not contain some fascinating detail and the narrative is held together with a novelist’s eye for character and theme." #Dominion https://t.co/FESSNxVDLC [source]

David Marquand

This book is all about the way that Europe has managed – not always totally successfully, but managed nevertheless – to come to terms with its bloody and horrible past. [source]

Keith Lowe

What [source]

Ben Shapiro

A lot of people have read Orwell's 1984, he actually wrote a book that's better. It's this book. [source]

Guy Raz

The other reason I picked this book is that Orwell, like Dan Schorr, was an outsider. When he went to Spain, he was an unknown. He wasn’t Hemingway. He wasn’t a well-connected intellectual. He just had this amazing eye for detail. He was an amazing observer, and he could write so powerfully. This book, to me, is just one of the classics of foreign reporting. [source]

Timothy Garton Ash

Anyone who wants to go off and write about Egypt, Tunisia or Libya today should pack a copy of Homage to Catalonia. It’s brilliant reportage. As you know, it opens with a vignette of an Italian militiaman in the barracks in Barcelona and he only saw this guy for a few moments but it captures the excitement. [source]

Craig Mazin

Writer, Producer/Chernobyl TV Series

These are sources I found fascinating and useful. Not ALL of them, but a bunch. First up, obviously... Svetlana Alexievich's Voices From Chernobyl. Absolutely essential, and heartbreaking, reading. There's a reason Ms. Alexievich has a Nobel Prize. [source]

Kate Brown

It’s a very beautiful work and I think it gives you the emotional landscape of how people dealt with their anxieties, fears, the health problems that ensued, and their growing sense of disillusionment with their political leaders and the Communist party. [source]

Rebecca Altman

What follows events like Chernobyl is a politics of measurement. Who counts? What counts? Who does the counting? How are boundaries drawn for the purposes of counting and comparing? And what is discounted, or never counted at all? [source]

Eric Weinstein

Managing Director/Thiel Capital

Eric Weinstein recommended this book on Twitter. [source]

Antony Beevor

This book is about…the Stalinist repression of the areas known as the borderlands, which Snyder has termed the bloodlands. Snyder is looking at the deliberate mass murder of civilians in a particular zone of Europe between about 1930, at the start of the second Ukraine famine, and 1945. [source]

Edward Lucas

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin offers the best account of the most important and terrible years of the last century, when Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler jointly consigned the territories and people between their two empires to the meat-grinder. [source]

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

Marx and Engels’s historical analysis is breathtakingly, brilliantly simple. I think it’s wrong but, again, you’ve just got to admire its genius. Obviously, without understanding the historical basis of Marx’s thought you can’t understand anything else in Marxism. [source]

Peter Singer

Yes, it is. I chose The Communist Manifesto, rather than, say, Capital because it shows in a much easier-to-read, shorter work something that is central to Marx’s vision. Capital is much drier, and a lot of it is focused on economics, although there are some remarkable passages of Capital describing the conditions of industrial workers in England at the time. [source]