Francis Fukuyama's Book Recommendations (Updated for 2026)

1

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Michael Lewis

4.4

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope an

Recommended by Sheryl Sandberg, Barry Ritholtz, David Heinemeier Hansson, and 5 others.

Francis Fukuyama

What Michael Lewis points out very forcefully is that they were deliberately created by Wall Street banks in order to produce non-transparent securities that could not be adequately evaluated by the rating agencies, which then could be sold to less sophisticated investors, who would buy the idea that this junk debt actually had triple A ratings. So what this book does quite brilliantly is show that there was actually a high degree of intentionality in creating the crisis. [source]

Sheryl Sandberg

COO/Facebook

Michael Lewis's ability to boil down the most complicated subjects is like a magic trick. You can't believe your own eyes. He takes on important issues - from the 2008 Wall Street crash in "The Big Short" to parenting in "Home Game" - and breaks them down to the deepest truths. His combination of an extraordinarily analytical mind and a deep understanding of human nature allows him to weave together data and events to offer a fresh and insightful narrative. Whatever the topic, the result is always compelling and even thrilling. I am in awe of him. [source]

Barry Ritholtz

Michael Lewis, to me, is the preeminent narrator of the financial crisis. He is the guy who constructs the story better than anybody else. [source]

2

Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy

Raghuram G. Rajan

4.3

Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In "Fault Lines," Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devast

Recommended by Francis Fukuyama, George A. Akerlof, and Robert J Shiller.

Francis Fukuyama

He accepts the fact that the crisis had multiple causes but he argues that redistribution done through subsidised lending is one of the most inefficient and dangerous ways to do redistribution. [source]

George A. Akerlof

Fault Lines provides an excellent analysis of the lessons to be learned from the financial crisis, and the difficult choices that lie ahead. Of the many books written in the wake of our recent economic meltdown, this is the one that gets it right. [source]

Robert J Shiller

I admire this book because it’s not superficial. It goes for the ultimate causes of the economic crisis we’ve been through. Most people tend to focus in on something approximate. [source]

3

This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

Carmen Reinhart

4.0

Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing--and recovering--their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different"--claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading econo

Recommended by Bill Gates, Andrew W Lo, Charles Morris, and 2 others.

Francis Fukuyama

Reinhart and Rogoff are two macroeconomists who have done a marvellous job in bringing together a lot of historical and international data about how unstable financial systems are. The title of their book, This Time is Different, tells you the whole theme. In many respects, the Wall Street crisis was not at all different from Argentina or Britain in the early 1990s or any number of other crises that have been fuelled by credit bubbles and mismanaged macroeconomic policy. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012. [source]

Andrew W Lo

They…took an enormous amount of time to put together datasets that allow us to look back eight centuries and ask, quantitatively, whether there are any common denominators to financial crises. And the not-surprising answer is, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ [source]

4

13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown

Simon Johnson, James Kwak

4.1

Even after the ruinous financial crisis of 2008, America is still beset by the depredations of an oligarchy that is now bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever. Anchored by six megabanks—Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley—which together control assets amounting, astonishingly, to more than 60 percent of the country

Recommended by Daron Acemoglu and Francis Fukuyama.

Francis Fukuyama

Obviously that’s way overstated, but it is remarkable that here we are in 2012, the fourth year after the crisis. We still don’t have an adequate regulatory system in place to prevent a crisis like this from happening, and the recent collapse of MF Global indicates that in many respects Wall Street hasn’t learned lessons either, in terms of the kinds of risks they’re willing to take. [source]

Cover unavailable

5

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, Authorized Edition: Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

4.0

The definitive report on what caused America's economic meltdown- and who was responsible. The financial and economic crisis has touched the lives of millions of Americans who have lost their jobs and their homes, but many have little understanding of how it happened. Now, in this very accessible report, readers can get the facts. Formed in May 2009, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC)

Recommended by Francis Fukuyama.

Francis Fukuyama

It’s mostly the dissent, which basically shows this amazing phenomenon, that the Republicans have not been able to learn from the past 30 years. Especially the Wallison dissent, which takes what is a very complex crisis that has multiple roots and lays it all at the door of Fannie and Freddie and government intervention. It seems to me transparently designed to exonerate free markets. I like free markets – I think we benefit from having market competition and the market setting prices and so forth – but this crisis has proved that financial markets are not self-regulating. To draw from this complex analysis that particular conclusion I just find astonishing. [source]