100 books like Transaction Man

Marcia Chatelain documents the surprising but significant role that McDonald’s played in the civil rights movement. As community hubs, its outlets were sites of protests and bombings. Later, Black franchise owners sued the company for race discrimination. The Golden Arches symbolize the hope and exploitation of Black capitalism. This Pulitzer Prize-winning book is a smorgasbord of stunning detail, and I’m lovin’ it. 

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.

This book captures the decline of the traditional job—stable, well-paid, with a good chance of moving up—between World War II and the end of the 20th century. Wartzman is a clear, engaging writer who tells gripping stories about workers, bosses, chief executives, and politicians to explain what the old “social contract” between big companies and American society was, and why it disappeared. But he’s also particularly good at not overly romanticizing the earlier era, when huge swaths of people—like women, people of color, immigrants, the disabled, and others—were cut out of the workforce by prejudice and racism. This book makes business and labor history engaging and entertaining, even while it will make you mad about how bad things have become.

This book—written by a scholar who also works in government—is both infuriating and enlightening. It takes on the real problem of precarious, poorly paid jobs and, by getting way into the weeds of how companies are organized, gives a clear explanation for how so many jobs became so bad and at least some hope for a policy fix. The root of the problem, Weill shows, is basically outsourcing: large companies hire out jobs (cleaners, security, customer service) to low-paying, often badly managed small companies, and that drives down wages, benefits, and job security. The most insane examples of this occur when laborers are pushed into being independent contractors or franchise owners. Officially they are “small business owners” but in practice, they have no control over their work and no opportunities to grow. The book is full of memorable (and enraging) vignettes and examples, making a dry argument about corporate structure… show more.

In his characteristically funny and sardonic style, Andersen guides us through the historical connection between corporate America and the Republican Party. Needless to say, the relationship has been strong and fruitful (Democrats are guilty as well, but it’s hardly a comparison). He reports on the key conservative figures in both the private and public spheres who have funded and enabled the transformation of our laws and society. It is a remarkable story of power and greed written in concise witty prose. Highly recommend!

This groundbreaking and wonderfully written study of two “protest” leaders during the Great Depression of the 1930s in the United States shows us what happens when truly hard times hit ordinary people, and what sort of leaders they then turn to. Brinkley brilliantly chronicles the rise of Louisiana politician Huey Long, the “Kingfish”, from obscurity in the poor Jim Crow south to becoming, by the time he was assassinated in 1935, the most significant political threat to the popular President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Long’s calls for wealth redistribution, contempt for traditional elites, and disregard for democratic institutions, make him an important historical example of so-called populist leadership, and of the power and appeal of populism in times of crisis.

Halberstam, known for big, thick books centered around big American themes, treads the same ground as Thomas Hine’s Populuxe. Instead of concentrating on refrigerators and roadsters, Halberstam tackles the political, social, economic, and cultural change in America during the 1950s—essentially, he examined the rivets in the launching pad for the American Century. Halberstam’s great gift of teasing out stories of long-overlooked contributors is put to effortless use here as we meet Kemmons Wilson, founder of the Holiday Inn hotels, the McDonald brothers, auto designer Harley Earl, ad man Rosser Reeves and Goody Pincus, developer of the birth control pill. Other, more famous connectors are duly noted—Elvis, McCarthy, MacArthur, Ozzie Nelson, Uncle Miltie—but in the end, Halberstam’s book is an inspiration (and a template) for writers of cultural history.

Beginning with service as a military officer at the US embassy in Tripoli in 2009, Frederic Wehrey has had a long association with Libya.

This has enabled him to develop an unparalleled range of contacts inside and outside the country.

With a solid grounding in Libyan history, his analysis of socio-economic and political events has an authoritative freshness that few can equal.

In The Burning Shores, which focuses on Libya after the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime, he explores the missteps and turning points that led to the splintering of Libya, an outcome he rightly believes was not preordained.

This is an exceptional book; it is authoritative, informative, accessible, and will stand the test of time. 

It is very rare for economists to write clearly and intelligibly for lay readers. It is even rarer that the complexities of the Central American economies are lucidly explained at both macro- and micro-levels, with a critique that is profound and alternatives that are viable. Although some things have changed in the last thirty years, it is simply not possible to understand contemporary Central America without knowledge of its previous political economy.

Many people get involved with Africa through their concern for its’ poverty and with a genuine desire to help “develop” Africa. Ferguson’s analysis shows how counter-productive this is without an understanding of the ways in which African society differs from western society. Much social theory is generalizations based on interpretations of western development. These ideas are then projected into Africa on the basis that the more they are like us, the more developed they will be. I hope these five books help you un-learn this perspective and embrace the originality and genius of Africa.