Cool Books
An eclectic list of neat, non-academic books...
Corporate Research
Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age
by Michael Hiltzik
Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age
by Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
by Jon Gertner
The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television
by Evan Schwartz
The Soul of a New Machine
by Tracy Kidder
Stealth: The Secret Contest to Invent Invisible Aircraft
by Peter Westwick
A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War
by Ronald Fierstein
Industry Studies
Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies
by Lawrence Goldstone
Chip War: The Quest to Dominate the World's Most Critical Technology
by Chris Miller
Climb to Greatness: The American Aircraft Industry, 1920-1960
by John Rae
Drive!: Henry Ford, George Selden, and the Race to Invent the Auto Age
by Lawrence Goldstone
Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World
by Jill Jonnes
The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World
by Virginia Postrel
Fins: Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit
by William Knoedelseder
The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters
by Gregory Zuckerman
Hard Landing: The Epic Contest for Power and Profits That Plunged the Airlines into Chaos
by Thomas Petzinger
Tractor Wars: John Deere, Henry Ford, International Harvester, and the Birth of Modern Agriculture
by Neil Dahlstrom
The Power Brokers: The Struggle to Shape and Control the Electric Power Industry
by Jeremiah Lambert
When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach
by Ashley Vance
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet
by Katie Hafner
Silicon Valley
The Big Score: The Billion-Dollar Story of Silicon Valley
by Michael Malone
The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company
by Michael Malone
The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
by Jimmy Soni
The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley
by Leslie Berlin
Moore's Law: The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley's Quiet Revolutionary
by Arnold Thackray, David Brock, and Rachel Jones
The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story
by Michael Lewis
Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age
by Leslie Berlin
Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128
by AnnaLee Saxenian
Business History
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
by Bryan Burrough
Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America's Kings of Beer
by William Knoedelseder
Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story
by John Bloom
The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America
by Marc Levinson
The Taking of Getty Oil: Pennzoil, Texaco, and the Takeover Battle That Made History
by Steve Coll
Science and Technology
The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
by Thomas Hager
Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex
by Michael Hiltzik
The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
by Dava Sobel
Prisoner's Dilemma: John von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb
by William Poundstone
Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age
by Matthew Brzezinski
Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II
by Janet Conant
Finance-ish
The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business
by Duff McDonald
Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago
by Carol Willis
The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Street's Bullish 60s
by John Brooks
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
by Ron Chernow
Once in Golconda: A True Drama of Wall Street 1920-1938
by John Brooks
VC: An American History
by Tom Nicholas
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
by Roger Lowenstein
Institutions (and their failure)
The Best and the Brightest
by David Halberstam
California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric and What It Means for America’s Power Grid
by Katherine Blunt
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
by Eric Schlosser
The Guns of August
by Barbara Tuchman
How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet
by Benjamin Peters
L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City
by John Buntin
Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
by William Cronon
The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly: A Study in Economic Ambivalence
by Ellis Hawley
The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor
by Jake Tapper
Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905-1953
by Simon Ings
Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles
by Les Standiford
Biography
Architects of an American Landscape: Henry Hobson Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Reimagining of America’s Public and Private Spaces
by Hugh Howard
The Brothers Vonnegut: Science and Fiction in the House of Magic
by Ginger Strand
The Fifties
by David Halberstam
Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted
by Justin Martin
Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius
by Sylvia Nasar
Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution
by Duncan Campbell-Smith
A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age
by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni
Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction
by Thomas McCraw
by Tom Wolfe
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
by Ron Chernow
Policy
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs
by Melvin Urofsky
Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams; Louis D. Brandeis; James M. Landis; Alfred E. Kahn
by Thomas McCraw
Myth-Busting
Freud: The Making of an Illusion
by Frederick Crews
The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World
by Walter Kiechel
The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing
by Merve Emre