100 books like Stealth Of Nations

I met Matthew Desmond before he became one of the youngest Professors with his own center at Princeton University. He was visiting London, had just published his first book, and was still finishing the research for this book.

Desmond did an enormous amount of field research; he spent months living in a trailer park, on top of thousands of hours in archives and courtrooms where eviction cases are decided. The result is the best book I have ever read about poverty.

What happens when ‘normal people’ get evicted? Desmond’s story is rich and personal, and that is what we need: we need to understand the lives of poor people better in order to finally decide that we must change the systems that put them there. 

Drawing on her first-hand experience of living in a shantytown in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Perlman powerfully upends many existing myths about the urban poor as marginal in this classic work.

This book, which inspired me to look beyond the economic models at how people actually live, shows how shantytown dwellers are integrated into society, but in a way that exploits and oppresses them economically and politically.

They are not socially and culturally marginal, but rather they are stigmatized and excluded from a closed social system that is radically unequal.

They are socially well-organized and cohesive; they aspire to educate their children and improve the quality of their homes; they work hard and take pride in a job well done. They are aware of and involved in those aspects of politics that affect their lives. 

In this riveting account, Agbiboa dispels the myth that corruption is a culturally accepted norm in Nigeria.

He spent months behind the wheel as a minibus conductor in the informal settlements of Lagos, Nigeria, and experienced first-hand the stark realities of the corrupt interactions between drivers, police, and members of the transport workers union.

Nigerians reject, and simultaneously have little choice, but to participate in the petty corruption that arises from the systematic, violent, and exploitative relationship between the state and union on the one hand, and transport operators and passengers on the other.

Agbiboa shows that binary understandings of formality/informality, public/private, and legal/illegal derived from Western thought do not adequately capture the way that petty corruption is embedded in the state and is driven by elite corruption.

This resonated strongly with my research on the informal economy in Tanzania.

Ela Bhatt, a former Member of the Indian parliament, chronicles the astonishing rise of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) ,which she helped form in 1972.

The overwhelming majority of the labor force in India is self-employed and the majority of the self-employed are women. Today SEWA works in 18 Indian states and is made up of 2.1 million informal women workers — the single largest union of informal sector workers in the world.

In this first-hand account, Bhatt shows how the organization struggled against cultural norms, the state, and formal unions, and challenged the rise of Hindu nationalism as it mobilized women across religious lines and caste in the state of Gujarat, which has experienced decades of Hindu-Muslim violence.

This pioneering work shows how it is possible to innovate in a big company and introduces the term “intrapreneurship” to a broader audience. Pinchot describes intrapreneurs as “dreamers who do” and provides a wealth of specific hands-on guidance for an internal leader.

I love this book because it really ushered in a new era of thinking on the topic and laid the foundation for so many people to learn—and deliver—based on its findings. It highlights the importance of intrapreneurs and conveys a sense of possibility at the intersection of imagination and practical, tangible action.

It also includes specific stories about people and companies that remain relevant today. This book inspired me in my writing journey and conveys timeless ideas in powerful ways.

I value this book as a comprehensive history of high-risk investing in America, from the Whaling Industry to Silicon Valley. 

Nicholas reveals the extraordinary skew and persistence in investment returns: a small number of investors are responsible for a disproportionate amount of the gains, and this holds true across widely varying institutional structures and technological domains.

And he explores the intimate relationship between the rise of the IT and Biotech industries and support from the U.S, Government. 

I deeply appreciate the way that Lécuyer undermines the myth that a few genius entrepreneurs and venture capitalists invented Silicon Valley from nothing.

He documents the pre-history of Silicon Valley, showing how the “ham radio” operators of the early 20th Century found support from the U.S. Navy to build a micro-electronics industry in the San Francisco Bay Area before World War II. A skilled technical workforce was available when, partly by chance and partly through the initiative of Stanford’s Dean of Engineering, Frederick Terman (himself a radio engineer), the semiconductor industry found its home.

I love participating in the creative process with my work. This book helped me understand that the creative process enables me to bring greater honor and glory to my God. It is helping me to better understand how entrepreneurship provides a great opportunity to commune with God and to know him better through my work.

This book helped me discover the potential God wants to unleash within me through my creative endeavors and can help others flourish. The creative process helps us see something bigger than anything any of us could ever make, that is, to engage with God, who meets all of our needs. 

My father was an inventor. That is what is says on his tombstone. Over 100 patents.

His products today in building supply shops and in real buildings. And some crazy inventions that did not make him famous, but he had fun with.

So I guess I have a born sympathy for the lone inventor, who against many odds, manages to do interesting useful work and industrialise it successfully. This is not about Dyson, but written by him. Hopefully he will inspire the next generation of inventors.

This book made me feel seen.

There’s something so surreal about going from having one very specific job title at a company to having multiple jobs when you start getting more serious about your side hustles. This book made me realize I’m not alone in having more than one career at the same time, while also teaching me why this is a smart decision and how to get better at it.

Plus, the book is funny and incredibly easy to read. Emma Gannon has no idea who I am, but I feel like she’s my new best friend after reading this.