100 Best Revolution Books of All Time

Whitney Cummings[Whitney Cummings recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

Vlad TenevWhen I was in sixth grade I remember being very upset by the ending of [this book]. (Source)

Sol OrwellQuestion: What books had the biggest impact on you? Perhaps changed the way you see things or dramatically changed your career path. Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 (though Huxley's Brave New World is a better reflection of today's society). (Source)

Amelia BooneRemains one my favorites to this day. (Source)

Antonio VillaraigosaAs mayor of a large metropolis, the living conditions of our residents are always present in my mind. Every decision I make, I try to evaluate if it will help improve the quality of life of every Angeleno. But Dickens really dissects both the aristocrats and the revolutionaries, to show that change is never easy. As progressives, we value government’s role and power to improve our cities and... (Source)

May WitwitI started a paper about the historical reality in this book. And as I studied it more deeply I got depressed because the things that were happening were similar to Iraq. How the mob could be turned against people by devious minds. They just killed people without even knowing them. The people who were killed were probably very good people, you never know. You just can’t kill haphazardly, heads... (Source)

Sean Junkins@msphillipsrvhs @rvhs Great book! Can never go wrong with anything from David McCullough! (Source)

Bill Gates[On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012.] (Source)

Robert MuchamoreA brutal, exciting, action-based sci-fi novel. Hugely popular and excellent fun. (Source)

Richard BransonToday 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)

Steve Jobscalled this book "one of his favorite" and recommended it to the hires. The book also inspired one the greatest TV ad (made by Jobs) (Source)

D J TaylorIn terms of how technology is working in our modern surveillance powers, it’s a terrifyingly prophetic book in some of its implications for 21st-century human life. Orwell would deny that it was prophecy; he said it was a warning. But in fact, distinguished Orwell scholar Professor Peter Davis once made a list of all the things that Orwell got right, and it was a couple of fairly long paragraphs,... (Source)

Barack ObamaThe 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 VillaraigosaI 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)

Richard BransonOne example of a book that has helped me to #ReadToLead this year is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. While the book came out a few years ago now, I got around to it this year, and am very glad I did. I’ve always been fascinated in what makes humans human, and how people are constantly evolving, changing and growing. The genius of Sapiens is that it takes some daunting,... (Source)

Reid HoffmanA grand theory of humanity. (Source)

Barack Obamaeval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'theceolibrary_com-leader-2','ezslot_7',164,'0','1'])); Fact or fiction, the president knows that reading keeps the mind sharp. He also delved into these non-fiction reads. (Source)

Bill GatesProbably the [science fiction book] I read the most when I was younger. (Source)

Elon Musk[Elon Musk recommended this book as one of his favorite books about space.] (Source)

Orson Scott CardRobert A Heinlein is, quite seriously, the creator of modern science fiction, in the way that Jane Austen is the creator of the modern novel. (Source)

Casey NeistatAside from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Casey's favorite book is The Second World War by John Keegan. (Source)

Ryan HolidayI 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... (Source)

Keith EllisonMalcolm X is somebody that everybody in America’s prisons today could look at and say, ‘You know what, I can emerge, I can evolve' (Source)

Mark ZuckerbergI 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... (Source)

Peter TeminThe new Jim Crow that Michelle Alexander is talking about is mass incarceration. (Source)

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

Ryan HolidayRelated 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... (Source)

Jim ManleyAm reading this book, it’s called Hamilton by Ron Chernow. Not sure if anyone has heard of it - but Hamilton calling john Adams a crazy President has a certain resonance in this day and age. History is amazing (Source)

David BellosBecause it’s so huge and so capacious and contains so many different stories and takes on the world, you can make anything out of Les Misérables. (Source)

Christian B MillerVividly illustrates two ideas about character. The first is that our characters can change over time, the second is that role models can be powerful sources of character change. (Source)

Jeff BezosI’m a big science-fiction fan. I love [this book]. (Source)

Elon MuskBrilliant. [The author] advocates placing limits on machine intelligence. (Source)

Adam SavageIf you haven't read it, just go read it. It is amazing! (Source)

Boris StarlingV for Vendetta is a graphic novel set in a future, fascist Britain. It mirrors 1984 in some ways. The fascists are called Norsefire. (Source)

Evan GoldbergI often give [this book] to people. (Source)

Pooneh GhoddoosiI read the book and it was great, but more people saw the film because it was nominated for an Academy Award. And after seeing the movie, so many people I knew came up to me and told me that they thought it was exactly the story of my life. And not just me, but most of my Iranian friends had the same feeling of “Oh God, that could have been me, I could have written that book – it could have been... (Source)

ZoeThe Red Queen series is about a girl living in a world where the colour of your blood determines your status. (Source)

Ben HorowitzA management and cultural genius better than anybody that I’ve ever read about or learned from. (Source)

Christian WisskirchenThe book highlights the achievement of the Haitian nation to be the only ever slave revolution achieving independence by armed struggle. (Source)

Trevor PhillipsThis book is very complex because it does not make the rebellion’s leader, Toussaint L’Ouverture, into a sort of plaster saint. (Source)

Richard BransonToday 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)

Vishakha DesaiTo me Wild Swans is one of those iconic books for understanding the generations of Chinese women. She is from this amazing intellectual family and it’s about what happens to them. The book just has this tremendous power. It’s an amazing journey. It’s about what women do to survive and also how they suffer. (Source)

Harry WuWild Swans is talking about people who are living at the highest level of society but they are still suffering persecution and live in fear. And the peasants in the village became slaves, they became nothing. So what the book does brilliantly is give a real insight into what life was like for ordinary people against the backdrop of the ever-changing China. (Source)

Thomas KeneallyWell, I’ve chosen this because, from what I remember, it’s the book I most admired while I was writing about Russia because it gives the tremendous overall sweep of the entire catastrophe up to the end of the civil war in 1922 and the famine. Figes has the capacity to focus on people you’ve never heard of and show them as representatives of ideologies competing for control of the Russian state,... (Source)

Roland ChambersA People’s Tragedy is the most readable and illuminating history of the Russian revolution to be written, using material that only became available to historians following the Soviet Union’s collapse. (Source)

Andrea WulfInstead of writing a massive 700-page book, Ellis just gives you seven events which will tell you everything you need to know. (Source)

Timothy SnyderThe reason why I am so fond of Homage to Catalonia, and see it as an even more relevant precursor to dissent, is that in it you can see a man of the Left learning to make the distinction that breaks down the Left with a big L into lots of little lefts. He comes to understand what Soviet power actually is, and that it is qualitatively different to the other sorts of Spanish left, or to European... (Source)

Ben ShapiroA lot of people have read Orwell's 1984, he actually wrote a book that's better. It's [this book]. (Source)

Timothy Garton AshAnyone 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)

Grady BoochI read this several years ago but — much like Orwell’s 1984 — it seems particularly relevant given our current political morass. (Source)

Cliff Bleszinski@HandmaidsOnHulu Done. Love the show, book is a classic, can't wait for season 2. (Source)

Jason Kottke@procload Not super necessary, since you've seen the TV show. This first book is still a great read though...different than the show (tone-wise more than plot-wise). (Source)

Barack ObamaThe president also released a list of his summer favorites back in 2015: All That Is, James Salter The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr (Source)

Jack DorseyQ: What are the books that had a major influence on you? Or simply the ones you like the most. : Tao te Ching, score takes care of itself, between the world and me, the four agreements, the old man and the sea...I love reading! (Source)

Doug McMillonHere are some of my favorite reads from 2017. Lots of friends and colleagues send me book suggestions and it's impossible to squeeze them all in. I continue to be super curious about how digital and tech are enabling people to transform our lives but I try to read a good mix of books that apply to a variety of areas and stretch my thinking more broadly. (Source)

Barack ObamaThe president also released a list of his summer favorites back in 2015: All That Is, James Salter The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr (Source)

Ryan HolidayIn terms of big biographies, Ron Chernow’s biography of Washington, Eric Romm’s biography of Seneca Dying Every Day (LOVED THIS) and Edmund Morris’ final biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Col. Roosevelt were all worth every page. (Source)

Gretchen RubinI copied Franklin in my own book. He believed that we all could determinately sit down and come up with practical steps to make changes in our life. He identified 13 virtues that he wanted to imbue in himself and made a weekly chart to help him track his daily progress. I copied my resolutions chart from him. (Source)

Cory Booker[The author] didn’t mean to write his autobiography. He wanted to write a note to his family about what he’d learned in his experiments. (Source)

Brandon StantonOne of the very first books that I read. (Source)

Genevieve NnajiJust bought this book on #ibooks written by one of ours, @tomi_adeyemi . I’ve heard great things… https://t.co/DiIvPq2xM0 (Source)

Michelle Jana ChanHer story is told by three powerful, self-aware and intellectually upright characters who are swept up in the struggle to establish an independent Nigeria. It’s a call to arms. (Source)

Michael PeelChimamanda Adichie broke the ice in writing about the Biafran war. (Source)

Elon MuskI 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... (Source)

Scott Belsky[Scott Belsky recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

Brandon StantonThe [biography of Benjamin Franklin] I read. (Source)

Bianca BelairFor #BlackHistoryMonth  I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 7th Book: The Hate U Give By: Angie Thomas @angiecthomas The movie was really great, but it just hits different when you read the book! https://t.co/rxMH5Uu6JN (Source)

Tudor MihailescuIt’s vacation time so I got brave enough to start a sizeable trilogy by Ken Follett, The Century (Fall of Giants, Winter of the World, Edge of Eternity). The only expectation I had was to enjoy a good story, take my mind off into a different space. And it delivers, it’s a nice blend of history and fiction, an absorbing story throughout 20th century. (Source)

Martin SixsmithI like John Reed because he’s a journalist like myself, like yourself, and he was on hand to paint this fantastic, vivid picture of 1917. As you know, Warren Beatty turned it into that movie Reds in the 1980s that made revolution fun, sexy and exciting. John Reed debunks the great Soviet myth that October was a huge heroic struggle by the masses. He said: No, it wasn’t like that. The Winter... (Source)

Shami ChakrabartiIt’s all about the War on Terror as far as I’m concerned. (Source)

Mount Vernon@DEdHoggatt Great response, and congratulations! You've been selected to win Rick Atkinson's new book, 'The British Are Coming!' Please DM us to claim your prize, and thank you for participating in our contest! (Source)

Peter SingerYes, 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)

Felipe Fernández-ArmestoMarx 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)

Roland ChambersI chose this book because almost everything that people read about the Russian revolution is written by Westerners, partly because the official histories written under Stalin were incredibly boring and predictable. That all changed when the archives opened up after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but there’s a gap all the same, which Trotsky tried to fill. (Source)

Bianca BelairFor #BHM  I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 26th Book: Sister Outsider By: Audre Lorde My first time reading anything by Audre Lorde. I am now really looking forward to reading more of her poems/writings. What she writes is important & timeless. https://t.co/dUDMcaAAbx (Source)

Nicholas WhyteThe hero of The Dispossessed grows up on a planet which is one of two twin planets in a solar system far away from here. The planet where the hero grows up is essentially a communist-socialist utopia, and the twin planet that they see every day and every night hanging in the sky is a more capitalist society, much more similar to our western society. (Source)

André RuppFinally some light reading, right? I chose this book because the work that we do specifically on the innovative edges of educational assessment is, as I said earlier, a mixture of scientific rigour and artful practice. Essentially, it is all about designing under constraints. The design decisions have to permeate everything, from the way you design the activities to the way you design your... (Source)

Barack ObamaAccording 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... (Source)

Karl RoveI 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... (Source)

Damien MulleyI'm expecting to not be able to tell what happens next as I like surprises. (Source)

Cat Williams-TreloarI loved the Hugh Howey "Silo" trilogy. An epic science fiction story about the above ground world coming to an end and the remaining society living underground in Wool Silos. Makes me shiver thinking about what could happen in the future. It's an intense set. (Source)

Lynn HuntIt’s filled with incredibly interesting titbits and anecdotes and characterisations of people. It’s generally negative about the revolution, because it’s basically about how the revolution is really, really violent. (Source)

Bianca BelairFor #BlackHistoryMonth  I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 3rd Book: Women Race & Class By: Angela Y. Davis EYE-OPENING about the intersection b/w women, race, & class Some Topics: The Abolitionist, Feminist, Women’s Suffrage Movement, etc. https://t.co/RvlOadp7oU (Source)

George MonbiotThe Shock Doctrine explains some of the mechanisms by which patrimonial capital acquires power and enhances its wealth. It’s a brilliant piece of work, and one of those rare books that changes the way you perceive the world. (Source)

Mat WhitecrossIt starts with the theory that moments of crisis have been utilised by the right wing in the US and other countries to manipulate people into following their agenda. (Source)

Donna DickensonNaomi Klein’s argument is that capitalism actually requires deliberately engineered shocks to the economic systems. (Source)

Mark ZuckerbergIt's a history of science book that explores the question of whether science and technology make consistent forward progress or whether progress comes in bursts related to other social forces. I tend to think that science is a consistent force for good in the world. I think we'd all be better off if we invested more in science and acted on the results of research. I'm excited to explore this... (Source)

Tim O'ReillyThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn introduced the term "paradigm shift" to describe the changeover from Ptolemaic to Copernican astronomy. But the book is far more than a classic in the history of science. It's also a book that emphasizes how what we already believe shapes what we see, what we allow ourselves to think. I've always tried to separate seeing itself from... (Source)

Andra ZahariaI’ve gone through quite a few experiences brought on or shaped by what I’ve learned from books. A particularly unexpected one happened in college when our public relations teacher asked us to read a book called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. As a humanities student, you can imagine that I wasn’t thrilled I’d have to read a book on science, but what followed blew my mind... (Source)

Lisa LingI credit this book with propelling me to dig deeper, and to not always believe the narrative. (Source)

Alex HonnoldTotally changed the way I look at politics. (Source)

Lynn HuntWhat’s striking is that he is able to develop broad analytical categories that relate the French Revolution to the direction of modern society as a whole, which he sees as the destruction of the aristocracy and the coming of democracy. But he adds a twist that will remain influential to this day, which is that he points to the weakness of democracy as a form of government. It has an internal,... (Source)

Timothy FerrissThis classic work on state censorship remains as relevant in today’s world of digital delights as it was when published in the black-and-white world of 1953. In a futuristic American city, firefighter Guy Montag does not put out blazes; instead, he extinguishes knowledge and promotes ignorance by conducting state decreed book burnings. After an elderly woman chooses a fiery death with her books... (Source)

Ryan HolidayI’m not sure what compelled me to pick Fahrenheit 451 back up but I’m so glad I did because I was able to see the book in a very different context. Bradbury’s message (made explicit in his 50th Anniversary Afterword) is much less a warning against government control and much more about a road to hell paved by people attempting to rid the world of offensive speech and conflicting ideas. In a world... (Source)

Alexis Isabel@dontkauf i’ve read it! great book, def worth a re-read (Source)

Bill GatesIt seems like everyone I know has read this book. I finally joined the club after my brother-in-law sent me a copy, and I’m glad I did. Towles’s novel about a count sentenced to life under house arrest in a Moscow hotel is fun, clever, and surprisingly upbeat. Even if you don’t enjoy reading about Russia as much as I do (I’ve read every book by Dostoyevsky), A Gentleman in Moscow is an amazing... (Source)

Henry MedineI promote range and diversity. Thus, I recommend readers to expose themselves to as many different topics as possible. I usually have 2-4 books I refer back to at any given time. They range in topics from management, art, spirituality and philosophy. Trying to get the engineering thing going but don't much of a mind for science. (Source)

Heidi N. Moore@FeargusOSull Ha! Yes I love that book. (Source)

Ryan HolidayThis is the 48 Laws of Power written in more of an idealist, activist tone. Alinsky was the liaison for many civil rights, union and student causes in the late 50’s and 60’s. He teaches how to implement your radical agenda without using radical tactics, how to disarm with words and media as opposed to arms and Utopian rhetoric. (Source)

Mad BitcoinsI just read this fantastic book by Saul Alinsky and I tell you what, I think @AOC has read it as well. Trump should be very afraid. https://t.co/n7rlmetqzW (Source)

Michael CoudreyIf you want to know the tactics of the Democrats, you must read this book. If you understand their tactics, you'll be less likely to fall into their traps & better able to defeat them in conversation, in communication, in appearance, in reputation, in policy, & frankly, in life. https://t.co/L4gfuwZ6a3 (Source)