Love Farewell to Growth? Readers share 100 books like Farewell to Growth...

By Serge Latouche,

Here are 100 books that Farewell to Growth fans have personally recommended if you like Farewell to Growth. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Simon Hazeldine Author Of Neuro-Sell: How Neuroscience can Power Your Sales Success

From my list on sell ethically and effectively.

Why am I passionate about this?

I moved into the profession of selling almost by accident. I certainly wasn’t planning on a career in sales, but after leaving university I was offered a job taking incoming calls from customers. I loved dealing with customers, and it became a natural progression to follow my passion and pursue a career as a sales professional. I have always been fascinated by psychology and am an avid reader and lover of learning, so I became a committed reader of anything related to the profession of selling. In time, I became a professional speaker, consultant, and trainer on the topic and have written several books on the subject.

Simon's book list on sell ethically and effectively

Simon Hazeldine Why did Simon love this book?

Why do people say yes? How can we influence our customers effectively and ethically? The answers, or at least some of them, lie within the pages of this book. I was impressed with the depth of research behind this book and was enthralled by the stories and relatable examples it contained as I discovered the six principles of influence.

I have been able to successfully apply many of the principles in this book to my own marketing activity and sales approach with positive results. Despite the scientific rigor behind this book, I found it easy to read, understand, and, most importantly, apply. A side benefit is that it also helps you to defend yourself from manipulative and unethical persuasion attempts. All in all, a powerful book!

By Robert B. Cialdini,

Why should I read it?

25 authors picked Influence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The foundational and wildly popular go-to resource for influence and persuasion-a renowned international bestseller, with over 5 million copies sold-now revised adding: new research, new insights, new examples, and online applications.

In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini-New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion-explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings. Using memorable stories and relatable examples, Cialdini makes this crucially important subject surprisingly easy. With Cialdini as a guide, you don't have…


Book cover of Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers

Jonquil Lowe Author Of Be Your Own Financial Adviser

From my list on insights for managing your money wisely.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an economist who started out in stockbroking. But that felt like an exploitative industry and, looking for a more positive role, I moved to the consumer organisation Which? There, I cut my teeth helping people make the most of their money and then started my own freelance business. Along the way, I’ve worked with many clients (including financial regulators and the Open University where I now also teach), taken some of the exams financial advisers do and written 30 or so books on personal finance. The constant in my work is trying to empower individuals in the face of markets and systems that are often skewed against them.

Jonquil's book list on insights for managing your money wisely

Jonquil Lowe Why did Jonquil love this book?

US economist Frank Knight is credited with distinguishing uncertainty from risk back in 1921. Yet the two are often conflated.

Kay (an eminent economist) and King (a former Governor of the Bank of England) argue powerfully that the distinction does matter. They range widely across macroeconomics, politics, and consumer choices to show why reducing the future to a set of numbers (probabilities) creates a false – and often disastrous – illusion of power over future outcomes.

They argue that instead we should aim to make decisions that stand a reasonable chance of being robust against unknowable, as well as forecastable, paths that the future might take. That’s very much the ethos of my own books: building in resilience is a key part of successful personal financial planning.

By John Kay, Mervyn King,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Radical Uncertainty as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Some uncertainties are resolvable. The insurance industry's actuarial tables and the gambler's roulette wheel both yield to the tools of probability theory. Most situations in life, however, involve a deeper kind of uncertainty, a radical uncertainty for which historical data provide no useful guidance to future outcomes. Radical uncertainty concerns events whose determinants are insufficiently understood for probabilities to be known or forecasting possible. Before President Barack Obama made the fateful decision to send in the Navy Seals, his advisers offered him wildly divergent estimates of the odds that Osama bin Laden would be in the Abbottabad compound. In 2000,…


Book cover of The Hidden Persuaders

Jean Kilbourne Author Of Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel

From my list on books critiquing advertising and the popular culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

In 1968, I saw an ad that changed my life. It was typical—insulting to women, demeaning. Yet, at that moment, it somehow crystallized so many of my experiencesthe sexist slights, the terrible jobs, the sexual harassment, the catcalls, the objectification. I thought, “This is atrocious … and it is not trivial.” I started collecting ads and lecturing on the topic.  I made my first film, “Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women” in 1979 (and have remade it three times since). Eventually I wrote and made films about alcohol and tobacco advertising. In 2015, I was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Jean's book list on books critiquing advertising and the popular culture

Jean Kilbourne Why did Jean love this book?

I read this classic, published in 1957 when I was in high school. It was perhaps the first critique of advertising, and I found it fascinating.

Packard identified eight “compelling needs” that advertisers promise products will fulfill. Years later, I recognized how some of these needs were used to sell addictive products.

Although he didn’t address the objectification of women, he opened my eyes to the manipulative power of advertisers and the subconscious meaning of ads.  

By Vance Packard,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Hidden Persuaders as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"One of the best books around for demystifying the deliberately mysterious arts of advertising."--Salon

"Fascinating, entertaining and thought-stimulating."--The New York Times Book Review

"A brisk, authoritative and frightening report on how manufacturers, fundraisers and politicians are attempting to turn the American mind into a kind of catatonic dough that will buy, give or vote at their command--The New Yorker

Originally published in 1957 and now back in print to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, The Hidden Persuaders is Vance Packard’s pioneering and prescient work revealing how advertisers use psychological methods to tap into our unconscious desires in order to "persuade" us…


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Book cover of Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon

Douglas Rushkoff Author Of Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

From my list on understanding how tech billionaires think.

Why am I passionate about this?

I believed the Internet would be as colorful a cultural phenomenon as LSD. But before I was even able to convince people that something wonderful was on the horizon, big business swooped in and recontextualized the digital renaissance as a business revolution and the Silicon Valley mindset was born: Companies should grow exponentially forever! Any tech problem can be solved with more tech! Humans on Earth are just larvae–maggots–while wealthy tech bros will get to Mars or upload their minds to the cloud. This list of books is meant to show how these guys think and why they’re taking us in the wrong direction. 

Douglas' book list on understanding how tech billionaires think

Douglas Rushkoff Why did Douglas love this book?

This book is about the ultimate pyramid scheme, written largely from the perspective of someone who fell for it. Michael Lewis tells a story like nobody else. It is about Sam Bankman Fried, the crypto billionaire who is now in jail for defrauding everybody.

Only it was written before Fried was convicted, and some reviewers felt Lewis had himself been charmed and hoodwinked by Fried. But that’s precisely the reason I love this book: the author falls under the spell of a Silicon Valley accelerationist and techno-utopian.

We get to experience the logic of “effective altruism” and the cult of exponential growth from the inside rather than the cynicism of how it all turned out.

By Michael Lewis,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Going Infinite as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world's youngest billionaire and crypto's Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?

In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking readers into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system.…


Book cover of Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy

Laurie Laybourn Author Of Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown

From my list on to help us face up to the environmental crisis.

Why am I passionate about this?

I research, write and speak about the global environmental emergency and the policies and politics we need to adequately respond. Drawing on a decade of experience in academia, activism, and policymaking, my work explores the leadership needed to transition to more sustainable and equitable societies while contending with the growing destabilisation resulting from the worsening environmental crisis. I’ve worked at a range of leading policy research organisations and universities and have won awards for my work. I’ve got a BSc in physics and an MPhil in economies from the University of Oxford. 

Laurie's book list on to help us face up to the environmental crisis

Laurie Laybourn Why did Laurie love this book?

How can we make sense of the Covid-19 pandemic? Adam Tooze gives us a clear answer: it is the first crisis of the new era of environmental crisis. My work now focuses on the increasingly destabilizing effects that the crisis will bring into the future and how future leaders can be better ready to carry on the struggle under worsening conditions. The responses of current leaders to the pandemic – some good, many poor – are a key resource to learn from. This book is a first bash at learning the lessons from the pandemic. Into the future, more than anything we need leaders and governments who are capable of freeing us from the freezing embrace of fear in face of seemingly insurmountable odds. 

By Adam Tooze,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"This book's great service is that it challenges us to consider the ways in which our institutions and systems, and the assumptions, positions and divisions that undergird them, leave us ill prepared for the next crisis."-Robert Rubin, The New York Times Book Review

"Full of valuable insight and telling details, this may well be the best thing to read if you want to know what happened in 2020." --Paul Krugman, New York Review of Books

Deftly weaving finance, politics, business, and the global human experience into one tight narrative, a tour-de-force account of 2020, the year that changed everything--from the…


Book cover of When Things Don't Fall Apart: Global Financial Governance and Developmental Finance in an Age of Productive Incoherence

Elizabeth Friesen Author Of Challenging Global Finance: Civil Society and Transnational Networks

From my list on why international finance fails to deliver.

Why am I passionate about this?

During my childhood I heard many stories of economic collapse, depression, and subsequent war. This created an early awareness of the power of financial forces to shape the welfare, security, and life chances of millions. Since then, I have worked to better understand how such things happen and what could be done about them. I have focused on the nature of power and studied the contingent and contested political processes that shape financial orders. This contestation opens up the possibility of change and makes me hope that future financial orders will, eventually, be based on a wiser, more encompassing understanding of welfare, security, and perhaps even justice, than has been the case so far. 

Elizabeth's book list on why international finance fails to deliver

Elizabeth Friesen Why did Elizabeth love this book?

This book is a welcome antidote to the defeatism that results from a crisis-prone view of the world which is so easy to fall into today.

Grable argues that we should recognize that the rigid models that define a narrow “correct” path to progress are inadequate. Instead, she puts forward the value of what she calls “unscripted” innovations and reminds the reader of the value of “muddling through” and incremental change.

Grable shines a well-deserved light on earlier work by Hirschman and Lindblom. She combines an appreciation of the importance of ideas and the necessity of a high tolerance for complexity and incoherence. This book makes the case for the importance of remaining calm and carrying on, while still keeping an eye out for opportunity.  

By Ilene Grabel,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked When Things Don't Fall Apart as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An account of the significant though gradual, uneven, disconnected, ad hoc, and pragmatic innovations in global financial governance and developmental finance induced by the global financial crisis.

In When Things Don't Fall Apart, Ilene Grabel challenges the dominant view that the global financial crisis had little effect on global financial governance and developmental finance. Most observers discount all but grand, systemic ruptures in institutions and policy. Grabel argues instead that the global crisis induced inconsistent and ad hoc discontinuities in global financial governance and developmental finance that are now having profound effects on emerging market and developing economies. Grabel's chief…


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Book cover of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier,

The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.

It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. Brené Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".

It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,…

Book cover of The Hellhound of Wall Street: How Ferdinand Pecora's Investigation of the Great Crash Forever Changed American Finance

Matthew P. Fink Author Of The Unlikely Reformer: Carter Glass and Financial Regulation

From my list on American financial history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was always interested in American history and studied at Brown University under an outstanding professor of American economic history, James Blaine Hedges.   During my career at the mutual fund association I often approached issues from an historical perspective. For example:  Why did Congress draft legislation in a particular way?  How would past events likely affect a regulator’s decisions today?  As a lawyer I had been trained to write carefully and precisely.  As a lobbyist I learned the need to pre

Matthew's book list on American financial history

Matthew P. Fink Why did Matthew love this book?

Professor Perino’s book explains how Ferdinand Pecora, counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, ran the explosive hearings that virtually guaranteed Glass-Steagall’s enactment. I particularly enjoyed reading about Pecora because he and the subject of my book, Carter Glass, were allies in the battle for financial reform. While Perino is a distinguished professor of law, he writes in a non-legalistic and gripping style.

By Michael Perino,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Hellhound of Wall Street as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A gripping account of the underdog Senate lawyer who unmasked the financial wrongdoing that led to the Crash of 1929 and forever changed the relationship between Washington and Wall Street.

In The Hellhound of Wall Street, Michael Perino recounts in riveting detail the 1933 hearings that put Wall Street on trial for the Great Crash. Never before in American history had so many financial titans been called to account before the public, and they had come within a few weeks of emerging unscathed. By the time Ferdinand Pecora, a Sicilian immigrant and former New York prosecutor, took over as chief…


Book cover of An Extraordinary Time: The End of the Postwar Boom and the Return of the Ordinary Economy

Benjamin C. Waterhouse Author Of Lobbying America: The Politics of Business from Nixon to NAFTA

From my list on why corporations are powerful but economy stinks.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professor of modern U.S. History and have written books explaining the political and cultural power of corporations, lobbyists, and business people in American life. To me, the signal event of recent history was when the rapid economic growth that followed WWII ended in the 1970s. From globalization and deindustrialization to the rise of authoritarianism under the guise of populism, from systemic racism and the rise of the carceral state to the proliferation of bad jobs and the gig economy—the effects of that historic change shape every aspect of modern life. But this topic can sometimes seem a little dry, so I’m always looking for books that help make sense of it.

Benjamin's book list on why corporations are powerful but economy stinks

Benjamin C. Waterhouse Why did Benjamin love this book?

Levinson is a rare thing among economists: he is willing to admit what we don’t understand.

This book argues that global productivity declined in the 1970s compared to the 30 years after World War II, and no one knows why. It seems that, under capitalism, economic growth is normally just very slow, and the fast postwar growth was the aberration. But what really matters is how political leaders responded, making a series of bad decisions to try to appease people’s over-inflated expectations of growth. And this happened all over the world, from the U.S. to Germany to Japan to Latin America. This is the book that let me understand every aspect of modern life in the last 50 years—from stagnant wages to the roller-coaster casino economy to political dysfunction to gig companies.

By Marc Levinson,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A Washington Post and Strategy+Business Book of the Year.

Stagnant wages. Feeble growth figures. An angry, disillusioned public. The early 1970s witnessed the arrival of the problems that define the twenty-first century.

In An Extraordinary Time, Marc Levinson investigates how the oil crisis of the 1970s marked a radical turning point in global economics: and paved the way for the political and financial troubles of the present. Tracing the remarkable transformation of the global economy in the years after World War II, Levinson explores how decades of spectacular economic growth ended almost overnight - giving way to an era of…


Book cover of This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

Susanne Trimbath Author Of Lessons Not Learned: 10 Steps to Stable Financial Markets

From my list on stock market plumbing.

Why am I passionate about this?

My entire career has been spent in finance. From life insurance to central banks, from stock exchanges to post-trade clearing and settlement, this is all I’ve ever done. My college degrees include BSBA in Business/Marketing, MBA in Management, and PhD in Economics. In addition to knowing what a lot of people know about finance, I also worked inside the “black box” of the Federal Reserve System and depository trust and clearing corporations (in 4 cities, on 2 continents). Therefore, I know more about the plumbing of stock market infrastructure than most people who have careers (and education) as long as mine.

Susanne's book list on stock market plumbing

Susanne Trimbath Why did Susanne love this book?

Co-author Ken Rogoff taught my PhD course in Global Economics while he was a visiting professor at NYU (from Princeton). We used Foundations of International Macroeconomics as our textbook; Ken was writing the book with Maurice Obstfeld. When I turned in a handful of pages to him with editorial corrections, he hired me to edit the rest of the book and a research paper for him! It caused quite a stir among my peers when Ken thanked me by name when the article was published (JEL, June 1996). This book traces eight hundred years of financial crises to demonstrate that they are, in fact, predictable. Economists and policymakers are taken by surprise only because they do not learn the lessons from one crisis to the next.

By Carmen M. Reinhart, Kenneth S. Rogoff,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked This Time Is Different as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

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 economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong. Covering sixty-six countries across five continents, This Time Is Different presents a comprehensive look at the varieties of financial crises, and guides us through eight astonishing centuries of government defaults, banking panics, and inflationary…


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Book cover of Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS

Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS by Amy Carney,

When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…

Book cover of The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy

Max Gillman Author Of The Spectre of Price Inflation

From my list on Walter Bagehot’s challenge.

Why am I passionate about this?

I remember in high school going to the gas pump and filling up during the oil crisis of the 1970s. Inflation was everywhere, but I had no idea what that was. I learned something about this in college and then in Congress as a legislative aide. I remember distinctly a conversation in Congress on how we were going to pay for these huge deficits that arose out of the Reagan tax cuts, all the while when inflation was peaking at that time. I had no idea. I then spent my PhD working in monetary economics to show the effect of inflation on the economy and have not stopped yet.

Max's book list on Walter Bagehot’s challenge

Max Gillman Why did Max love this book?

King was the head of the Bank of England during the financial crisis of 2008. He declared full deposit insurance for the entire United Kingdom private banking system, with no deposit premiums required. This ended the run on the banks that spilled over into the streets of the UK during the crisis, when the Bank of England at first decided not to take care of Northern Rock, a private retail bank that was headed towards insolvency.

King provides a whimsical and sharp review of the private and central bank system before and after the crisis that builds very much on Charles Goodhart and Walter Bagehot. King laudably faults economists and the Economics profession for thinking that establishing negative real interest rates worldwide is the answer to central bank crises (in his newly added Introduction to the paperback edition of his 2016 hardback by the same name). Yet King sides with…

By Mervyn King,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Something is wrong with our banking system. We all sense that, but Mervyn King knows it firsthand; his ten years at the helm of the Bank of England, including at the height of the financial crisis, revealed profound truths about the mechanisms of our capitalist society. In The End of Alchemy he offers us an essential work about the history and future of money and banking, the keys to modern finance.

The Industrial Revolution built the foundation of our modern capitalist age. Yet the flowering of technological innovations during that dynamic period relied on the widespread adoption of two much…


Book cover of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Book cover of Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers
Book cover of The Hidden Persuaders

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