Here are 100 books that The Pentagon's Brain fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have been passionate about journalism since I was a teenager, when I became the co-editor of my high school newspaper. My career as a full-time journalist began decades ago, at a small family-owned newspaper in Berkshire County, Mass., and continued through staff writer positions at The Cape Cod Times, Providence Journal and now at OceanStateStories.org, the new non-profit news outlet based at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center in Newport, R.I., that I co-founded and now direct. So I have the long and inside view of American journalism!
This is arguably the most important book by journalists in the modern era.
Not only did the reporting behind it lead to the impeachment and subsequent resignation of President Richard Nixon in the wake of Watergate, it inspired generations of other journalists to investigate political crimes and criminals and hold office-holders at all levels accountable. One could reasonably say that it helped to save American democracy.
50th Anniversary Edition—With a new foreword on what Watergate means today.
“The work that brought down a presidency...perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history” (Time)—from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Final Days.
The most devastating political detective story of the century: two Washington Post reporters, whose brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation smashed the Watergate scandal wide open, tell the behind-the-scenes drama the way it really happened.
One of Time magazine’s All-Time 100 Best Nonfiction Books, this is the book that changed America. Published just months before President Nixon’s resignation, All the President’s Men revealed the…
I started researching the way the West’s intelligence services manipulated the public when I was a student in the mid-1970s. I then became an investigative journalist and often returned to the subject in different ways, especially as a national security correspondent. I fully acknowledge the massive manipulation by the Communist Bloc during the Cold War but believe that it is important the public is aware of the manipulation that the West’s Cold Warriors utilized is fully known and recognized as it has left a legacy that has allowed for the rise of ‘fake news’.
Ian Cobain is an exceptional British investigative journalist and was on the staff of The Guardian and is now with Middle East Eye. This book is broader than the Cold War but is a brilliant analysis of how the state uses secrecy to hide the truth of how the public is governed. He has done some groundbreaking work on how Foreign Office’s Information Research Department methods have been incorporated into modern anti-terrorism techniques.
In 1889, the first Official Secrets Act was passed, creating offences of 'disclosure of information' and 'breach of official trust'. It limited and monitored what the public could, and should, be told. Since then a culture of secrecy has flourished. As successive governments have been selective about what they choose to share with the public, we have been left with a distorted and incomplete understanding not only of the workings of the state but of our nation's culture and its past.
In this important book, Ian Cobain offers a fresh appraisal of some of the key moments in British history…
Everyone uses technology, but few stop to think about where these technologies come from and what this trajectory means to humanity. During my professional career, I have dedicated myself to public service focused on security and defense as a U.S. Army officer, senior government civilian, and in think tanks, industry, and academia. My journey has taken me to over 60 countries where I have witnessed humankind's best and worst. The difference is often in how our technologies are used—to build cities, feed populations, and develop life-saving vaccines or to oppress peoples or as tools of war.
I had never thought much about what technology was and where it came from before reading this book. This book opened my eyes and made me understand the history of humanity and the history of technology are one and the same.
The book vividly describes the theory of technology’s origin and evolution. In doing so, the author reminds us that technology creates our world, which in turn creates our wealth, our economy, and our way of being.
“More than anything else technology creates our world. It creates our wealth, our economy, our very way of being,” says W. Brian Arthur. Yet despite technology’s irrefutable importance in our daily lives, until now its major questions have gone unanswered. Where do new technologies come from? What constitutes innovation, and how is it achieved? Does technology, like biological life, evolve? In this groundbreaking work, pioneering technology thinker and economist W. Brian Arthur answers these questions and more, setting forth a boldly original way of thinking about technology.
The Nature of Technology is an elegant and powerful theory of technology’s origins…
Everyone uses technology, but few stop to think about where these technologies come from and what this trajectory means to humanity. During my professional career, I have dedicated myself to public service focused on security and defense as a U.S. Army officer, senior government civilian, and in think tanks, industry, and academia. My journey has taken me to over 60 countries where I have witnessed humankind's best and worst. The difference is often in how our technologies are used—to build cities, feed populations, and develop life-saving vaccines or to oppress peoples or as tools of war.
Extraordinary book that has tapped into the most important hardware of the AI revolution and will be foundational in the emerging Age of Augmented Humanity. This book provides the detail that allows the reader to understand the history and current state of global semiconductor design and the manufacturing community.
It also lays out in exquisite detail the importance of the technology in the future and how it needs to be protected. In no small measure, the book was instrumental in highlighting the importance of semiconductors in todays’ digital world.
***Winner of the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award***
'Pulse quickening. A nonfiction thriller - equal parts The China Syndrome and Mission Impossible' New York Times
An epic account of the decades-long battle to control the world's most critical resource-microchip technology
Power in the modern world - military, economic, geopolitical - is built on a foundation of computer chips. America has maintained its lead as a superpower because it has dominated advances in computer chips and all the technology that chips have enabled. (Virtually everything runs on chips: cars, phones, the stock market, even the electric grid.) Now…
Everyone uses technology, but few stop to think about where these technologies come from and what this trajectory means to humanity. During my professional career, I have dedicated myself to public service focused on security and defense as a U.S. Army officer, senior government civilian, and in think tanks, industry, and academia. My journey has taken me to over 60 countries where I have witnessed humankind's best and worst. The difference is often in how our technologies are used—to build cities, feed populations, and develop life-saving vaccines or to oppress peoples or as tools of war.
When I first saw the book, I thought, “What an odd title for a book on technology?” But the adage that you can’t tell a book by its cover was 100 percent accurate. The author takes the reader on a remarkable journey to understand how the technologies of the day, ordinary technologies—such as vaccines, pasteurization, drug regulation and testing, antibiotics, and industrial safety--have transformed humanity, societies, and our daily lives.
The author leaves the best for last, as he asserts that the most transformative technology has been access to clean water. The results are measured in greater longevity and quality of life for humanity. Using these everyday technologies, the author provides a clear articulation of why technology is so vital to our future.
“Offers a useful reminder of the role of modern science in fundamentally transforming all of our lives.” —President Barack Obama (on Twitter)
“An important book.” —Steven Pinker, The New York Times Book Review
The surprising and important story of how humans gained what amounts to an extra life, from the bestselling author of How We Got to Now and Where Good Ideas Come From
In 1920, at the end of the last major pandemic, global life expectancy was just over forty years. Today, in many parts of the world, human beings can expect to live more than eighty years. As…
Everyone uses technology, but few stop to think about where these technologies come from and what this trajectory means to humanity. During my professional career, I have dedicated myself to public service focused on security and defense as a U.S. Army officer, senior government civilian, and in think tanks, industry, and academia. My journey has taken me to over 60 countries where I have witnessed humankind's best and worst. The difference is often in how our technologies are used—to build cities, feed populations, and develop life-saving vaccines or to oppress peoples or as tools of war.
This book speaks to the opportunities and challenges for the participants in today’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) competition. It highlights the barriers to entry in this tech war—high costs, advanced hardware such as semiconductors and high-performance computing, and perhaps most importantly, access to human capital.
This book provides a roadmap for thinking about the current AI tech competition. It also highlights what is at stake if the United States does not lead in this space. The idea of AI development led by an authoritarian regime or a nation that does not place humanity first could arrive at solutions that are unfriendly and perhaps even hostile to humanity.
We like to think that we are in control of the future of "artificial" intelligence. The reality, though, is that we--the everyday people whose data powers AI--aren't actually in control of anything. When, for example, we speak with Alexa, we contribute that data to a system we can't see and have no input into--one largely free from regulation or oversight. The big nine corporations--Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Microsoft, IBM and Apple--are the new gods of AI and are short-changing our futures to reap immediate financial gain.
In this book, Amy Webb reveals the pervasive, invisible ways in which…
I love a story filled with interesting characters and a plot that reels me in. I know how challenging it is to construct a plotline and create breadcrumbs (not too many, so the solution isn’t obvious)–all driven by intriguing characters. I am also a sucker for the “good guys” winning but with no guarantees. The characters must have depth, and I want to learn something new about a situation I am unfamiliar with or how a great story is told.
I admit that I am intrigued by the ingenuity and the training of the Israeli Defense Forces. This is a thriller of a different kind.
I read this book to research and understand how the Israelis evolved their “we have no choice but to be the best” ethic. This is not a book about politics or moral judgments. It is an objective overview of how the army came into being and how, to this day, they discard conventional military thinking in defending their country—whether through battlefield strategy, innovation in defense technology, or intelligence services.
I found the book fascinating, especially the Israelis’ lateral thinking, encouragement, and application of ideas.
A world-leading military strategist and an IDF insider explain the improbable success of the Israeli armed forces.
When the Israel Defense Forces was established in May 1948, it was small, poorly equipped, and already at war. Lacking sufficient weaponry or the domestic industrial base to produce it, the newborn military was forced to make do with whatever it could get its hands on. That spirit of improvisation carried the IDF to a decisive victory in the First Arab-Israeli War.
Today the same spirit has made the IDF the most powerful military in the Middle East and among the most capable…
I have spent most of my adult life using entrepreneurial business practices and principles to redesign and transform nonprofits. From my very first nonprofit organizational acceleration, I was hooked. The wealth one receives from helping other people is so much richer and more satisfying than money–altruism is truly life's greatest pleasure. You know the movie The Sixth Sense where the little kid sees dead people everywhere? I am the same way, except everywhere I look, I see uncaptured opportunities for social impact. I live and breathe social impact strategy, governance, financing, evaluation, and change management. Because by fixing problems in those areas, organizations are able to do more to make the world a better place.
Good to Great is one of the best business books written, but it doesn't tell the full story. While Collins has other books, the most important companion to my prior recommendation is Great By Choice. Really, these books should be seen as a Part 1 and a Part 2.
The elements in this book are every bit as important–specifically, the "20 Mile March" piece is one that continues to resonate with me. More battle-tested wisdom from one of the world's greatest business scholars.
THE NEW QUESTION Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns with another groundbreaking work, this time to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research, buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins and his colleague, Morten Hansen, enumerate the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times.
THE NEW STUDY Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Collins's prior work by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced…
I love to teach and to do research on teaching and learning. Little compares to seeing how students’ faces light up when they get it. I want more students to experience the experience of getting it. After teaching for 25 years, and taking a deep dive into the scientific literature on learning, I have accumulated some important insights that I share in my work as Executive Director of a teaching and learning center, with my students, and with faculty across the nation. Teaching is not an impromptu act. It is an art and a science and I revel in it. These books will light a fire in you.
Just because most teachers love to read, their students may not feel the same way.
Teachers struggle with getting students to read and the rise in screen time and social media seems to make the challenge even tougher. Furthermore, is reading on a screen the same as reading on paper?
This book addresses reading on screens head on and provides a rich history of reading, and lays the groundwork for ways to get students to be more effective readers. I loved the facts relating to what catches student eyeballs.
Students are reading on screens more than ever-how can we teach them to be better digital readers?
Smartphones, laptops, tablets: college students are reading on-screen all the time, and digital devices shape students' understanding of and experiences with reading. In higher education, however, teachers rarely consider how digital reading experiences may have an impact on learning abilities, unless they're lamenting students' attention spans or the distractions available to students when they're learning online.
Skim, Dive, Surface offers a corrective to these conversations-an invitation to focus not on losses to student learning but on the spectrum of affordances available within digital…
I have over 2 decades of finance control and general management experience spanning the manufacturing and retail sectors, in big names like LVMH. A finance controller’s job is all about efficiency and involves learning every new tool available that can help to achieve that goal. Through this work, I realized how many people are not ready for the tidal wave of disruption about to hit employees with AI and other technological changes. I was utterly shocked at not being able to find a single sensible guidebook with solutions actionable by workers.
A wakeup call for many. Martin made the case of how tech is accelerating and impacting work, bringing the threat of massive unemployment to the public scene, and insisting that it’s not only blue-collar jobs that are concerned.
Critics noted a narrow stance that fails to account for factors like shifting demographics and trends like gigging. And massive unemployment has not yet materialized, though to his defense less than a decade has passed since. The only remedy from Martin – Universal Basic Income – is not a miracle solution applicable worldwide.
The book’s focus is more on convincing audiences of the upcoming problems than working on solutions. Setting aside these critics, Rise of the Robots remains an undeniable classic for anyone curious about tech’s impact on work.
Winner of the 2015 FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award A New York Times Bestseller Top Business Book of 2015 at Forbes One of NBCNews.com 12 Notable Science and Technology Books of 2015What are the jobs of the future? How many will there be? And who will have them? As technology continues to accelerate and machines begin taking care of themselves, fewer people will be necessary. Artificial intelligence is already well on its way to making good jobs" obsolete: many paralegals, journalists, office workers, and even computer programmers are poised to be replaced by robots and smart…
