The best books on how to make transport & mobility sustainable

Why am I passionate about this?

I found my passion for sustainable mobility while working on my PhD thesis about electric cars at a time when no one was interested in electric cars. I am fascinated by the disruptive forces in the transportation space. With my long-term work experience in management consulting, corporate, academics, and startups, I’m trying to make a contribution to making transport carbon-free.  


I wrote...

Enlightened Mobility: How we can surpass symbolic climate action & make transport carbon-free

By Andreas Schneider,

Book cover of Enlightened Mobility: How we can surpass symbolic climate action & make transport carbon-free

What is my book about?

Transportation, with its high carbon intensity, is a major driver of the greenhouse effect. It makes up for one-quarter of global carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions come from burning fossil fuel for cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes, and they significantly contribute to global warming. The public discussion on how to fight climate change mostly evolves around symbolic actions whose effect is rather doubtful. Will prohibiting domestic flights in France significantly reduce carbon emissions? Should we keep flying at all?

Enlightened Mobility applies a fact-based approach to outline the most beneficial strategies to combat climate change. The book explains why our current local and national thinking is doomed to fail and suggests a new mobility paradigm by painting a picture of the multimodal future of transportation.

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Future Is Asian: Commerce, Conflict, and Culture in the 21st Century

Andreas Schneider Why did I love this book?

This book shows how the future of our planet will be decided in Asia. It teaches us that when we aim to tackle climate change with impactful measures, it is not about America or Europe but about Asia.

With its tremendous size and growth in population, Asia will be the dominant continent in the world and therefore be key to solving the climate crisis.  

By Parag Khanna,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Future Is Asian as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Five billion people, two-thirds of the world's mega-cities, one-third of the global economy, two-thirds of global economic growth, thirty of the Fortune 100, six of the ten largest banks, eight of the ten largest armies, five nuclear powers, massive technological innovation, the newest crop of top-ranked universities. Asia is also the world's most ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse region of the planet, eluding any remotely meaningful generalization beyond the geographic label itself. Even for Asians, Asia is dizzying to navigate.

Whether you gauge by demography, geography, economy or any other metric, Asia is already the present - and it is…


Book cover of Moving Times: Mobility of the Future

Andreas Schneider Why did I love this book?

This book paints a detailed picture of how the future of mobility will look like.

It explains what the hype around electric mobility, autonomous driving, car sharing, and ride-hailing is about. It is a great introduction for everyone who wants to get started in understanding the future of sustainable mobility and carbon-free transport.

By Julian Weber,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Moving Times as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Will we really soon no longer be sitting behind the wheel of our own car, but will only be taken to our destination by driverless electric taxis? Should cities introduce car sharing? What role will electric scooters, cable cars or man-carrying drones play in the mobility systems of major cities? This book finally explains in a generally understandable way what is really behind buzzwords such as electric mobility, autonomous driving, digitalization and mobility services such as car sharing or ride-hailing, how far advanced these technologies are today, and above all in what relationships and dependencies they are to each other.…


Book cover of Move: The Forces Uprooting Us

Andreas Schneider Why did I love this book?

This book takes an exciting angle at mobility from a human civilization perspective. It shows us how climate change triggers massive migration processes across the globe.

For me, it was a great input when considering the best place to live for myself. Recommended for everyone who wants to leave their current location and be a mobile global citizen.

By Parag Khanna,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Move as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Where will you live in 2030? Where will your children settle in 2040? What will the map of humanity look like in 2050?

Mobility is a recurring feature of human civilisation. Now, as climate change tips toward full-blown crisis, economies collapse, governments destabilise and technology disrupts, we're entering a new age of mass migrations - one that will scatter both the dispossessed and the well-off. Which areas will people abandon and where will they resettle? Which countries will accept or reject them? As today's world population, which includes four billion restless youth, votes with their feet, what map of human…


Book cover of Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives

Andreas Schneider Why did I love this book?

Jarrett Walker is the expert on public transport and in this book he describes in detail how public transport can solve the challenges in transportation.

Pushing the modal shift from cars to public transport does not only help to save carbon emissions but also to reduce traffic congestion and push economic development. A book for everyone who wants to understand the alternatives to cars. 

By Jarrett Walker,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Human Transit as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Public transit is a powerful tool for addressing a huge range of urban problems, including traffic congestion and economic development as well as climate change. But while many people support transit in the abstract, it's often hard to channel that support into good transit investments. Part of the problem is that transit debates attract many kinds of experts, who often talk past each other. Ordinary people listen to a little of this and decide that transit is impossible to figure out. Jarrett Walker believes that transit can be simple, if we focus first on the underlying geometry that all transit…


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Book cover of Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink

Ethan Chorin Author Of Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Story-lover Middle East expert Curious Iconoclast Optimist

Ethan's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of citations and interviews with more than 250 key protagonists, experts, and witnesses.

So far, the book is the main -- and only -- antidote to a slew of early partisan “Benghazi” polemics, and the first to put the attack in its longer term historical, political, and social context. If you want to understand some of the events that have shaped present-day America, from political polarization and the election of Donald Trump, to January 6, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russian expansionism, and the current Israel-Hamas war, I argue, you need to understand some of the twists and turns of America's most infamous "non-scandal, scandal.”

I was in Benghazi well before, during, and after the attack as a US diplomat and co-director of a medical NGO. I have written three books, and have been a contributor to The NYT, Foreign Affairs, Forbes, Salon, The Financial Times, Newsweek, and others.

By Ethan Chorin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On September 11, 2012, Al Qaeda proxies attacked and set fire to the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing a US Ambassador and three other Americans.  The attack launched one of the longest and most consequential 'scandals' in US history, only to disappear from public view once its political value was spent. 

Written in a highly engaging narrative style by one of a few Western experts on Libya, and decidely non-partisan, Benghazi!: A New History is the first to provide the full context for an event that divided, incited, and baffled most of America for more than three years, while silently reshaping…


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