100 books like American Icon

If this book doesn’t sound like it’s for you, it’s time to reconsider. This well-researched analysis is all about how we’ll buy and sell cars in the future—something that nearly all of us will experience at multiple points “down the road,” so to speak. I’m not a car dealer, but I thoroughly enjoyed learning what drives the industry.

Steve Greenfield knows his stuff: His venture capital firm, Automotive Ventures, invests exclusively in mobility startups.

This book presents the historical story of another great company that rose to dominate its industry from the perspective of the man who led the company and was the architect of the strategic battle to create it. Alfred P. Sloan was an MIT-trained engineer when he was selected to lead General Motors, which was at the time “an also ran” to the once mighty Ford Motor Company led by the legendary visionary of the industry, Henry Ford. Yet Sloan, who even today is less well known than Henry Ford, crafted a strategy and organization that ultimately surpassed Ford not only in market share, but also in all aspects of operations so that General Motors and not Ford became the dominant colossus of the Automotive industry for more than a half-century. 

The book gives readers an opportunity to see the nature and evolution of Sloan’s plans and actions that slowly and… show more.

Greg Shotwell was a longtime worker at General Motors and activist in the United Auto Workers who was notorious among executives in both the company and union for his rank-and-file newsletter, Live Bait and Ammo. This book is a collection of articles from that newsletter, and it’s a bitingly funny and ultimately heartbreaking account of autoworkers’ losing fight to maintain the rights and living standards that had made the union famous. 

Unlike the other books on my list, this book is the story of a defeat, but it is also a portrait of the generation of working-class fighters who kept alive the radical shop-floor traditions that are an essential component of any socialist vision. This is the book that made me want to become a writer. 

I love books that explore the Soviet Bloc through its development of consumer culture. Much as they were in the West, in the East, cars were symbolic of progress and modernity. Unlike the West, production and distribution problems created a car culture focused on access. 

Still, the regimes struggled to control the excesses of consumer impulse more than they did the abuses of authority. This volume is fascinating as it asserts that the Soviet Bloc states were consumer-driven societies, given the same desires and demands as the West, despite their communist ideology.

Cars were political, and acquiring one may demand demonstrations of loyalty to the system. On the other hand, owning a car allowed for a perceived freedom from the regime, socialism, and social norms.

One of the success factors I highlight in my book is leading innovation and change.

Simply maintaining or marginally improving the status quo isn’t enough in most organizations. Many aspiring executives find the requirement to lead innovation intimidating, since by definition it means finding solutions that are different from what they are most familiar with.

Murray illustrates that the vast majority of innovations are not “bolts out of the blue.” Rather, they are often the result of taking a new idea out of one context (for example, a different field or industry) and then building on it.

The implication for me is that the successful executive needs to adopt an external perspective, i.e., looking outside his or her own organization, and find ways to identify new ideas—even if the practical application is not immediately apparent. 

There are many of us who believe Frances Hesselbein was one of the greatest leaders of our time, including myself, Peter F. Drucker, Alan Mulally, Marshall Goldsmith, and millions more.

A leader whose focus was on humility, love, and service, Frances spent her entire 107 years serving humanity in the area of leadership. She showed us by example that who we are will have everything to do with our performance and results. For instance, if we have respect for all people, our goals will include everyone in the results.

This book is essential for anyone learning about this great leader because it is in her words, what she believed to be important to who we are and how we lead.

This is a little-known gem by three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thornton Wilder (best known for his play Our Town). Published in the 1935, it’s a contemporaneous account of Depression-era America, following the misadventures of traveling salesman and religious zealot, George Brush. 

Coming off as preachy and self-righteous, George sparks ire and outrage wherever he goes. Yet, he’s a sincere and decent person. At the end of his misadventures, George is humbled and begins to broaden his views, making him a complex, sympathetic character.

Though renowned during his lifetime, Wilder has been largely forgotten in favor of flashier contemporaries. All of his works are worth rediscovering, but Heaven’s My Destination is closest to my heart as it was a major inspiration for my own book.  

Financial crises are not only catastrophic because of their devastating economic consequences. They also unleash radical political forces undermining the foundations of our free and open society. Widely praised for his work on Germany in the interwar years, Harold James is the best historian to describe the vicious circle of crisis, radicalization, and national isolation in the 1930s and to discuss the question: can it happen again?

This book is highly recommended for those who want to get an overview of the newest research on the Great Depression. Written by leading economic historians, the book explains what made the catastrophe possible, why it spread across the globe, and how it was ended. Most importantly, the authors manage to explain the scholarly literature in a language that can be understood by everyone interested in the period.

This is the story of four (European and American) central bankers fighting the dramas and crises during the lead-up to the Great Depression. When crisis looms, Bank of England Governor Montagu Norman puts on a disguise and boards a cruise ship to consult with his friend Benjamin Strong in New York. If only financial crises could still be fought that way today! I liked it because I used to be a central bank governor myself!