Executives should not live by spreadsheets alone. At this holiday season, I humbly suggest five recent books well worth executive and managerial reading time. Indeed, to provide more time for reading—and for reflection—the list and book descriptions are deliberately brief.
An Accident of Geography by Richard Blum (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2016). Compassion, innovation, and the fight against poverty from the perspective a private-equity investor and philanthropist.
The American President: From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton by William E. Leuchtenburg (Oxford University Press, 2015). A distinguished American historian offers the critical and essential analysis of the use and abuse of executive power during the 20th Century.
Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon by Larry Tye (Random House, 2016). In his remarkable biography of Robert Kennedy writer Larry Tye documents with candor and humanness the interplay of experience, reason, and faith in a notable political life.
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster, 2015). Quite simply, the Wright stuff soars.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday, 2016). Slavery and freedom, justice and injustice, and morality and immorality are masterfully related in a haunting novel of 19th-Century America.
Another of a series of occasional essays by John S. McClenahen, an award-winning writer and photographer who for nearly four decades wrote about international economics, public policy, and management for IndustryWeek.
