NIGHTLY READING THREAD: And so we come to Edition #99 of #GMGReads—the 15th week begins! Every night through this weird time, I've been tweeting out a list of my five favorite books around a general theme—and a link to an indie bookstore where you can order them online....
Tonight, I want to feature histories about leadership and how the toughest decisions in geopolitics get made—why they go well and why they go poorly:
1) Barbara Tuchman's study of the geopolitical inertia that led Europe to stumble into World War I, GUNS OF AUGUST, is surely one of the most majestic (and cautionary) books on leadership ever written: bookshop.org/books/the-guns…
PS: Christopher Clark wrote another thoughtful look at the same topic, THE SLEEPWALKERS: bookshop.org/books/the-slee…
2) There are two really good books inside the Kennedy White House's thinking during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Graham Allison's ESSENCE OF DECISION magersandquinn.com/product_info?p… and Robert Kennedy's own THIRTEEN DAYS: bookshop.org/books/thirteen…
3) Brian Vandemark's ROAD TO DISASTER pairs the narrative of failures of the nation's leaders amid Vietnam with psychological understanding of why they screwed up in their decision-making: bookshop.org/books/road-to-…
4) Doris Kearns Goodwin distilled the leadership lessons of her various biographies of Lincoln, FDR, LBJ, and Teddy Roosevelt in the engaging and illuminating LEADERSHIP: bookshop.org/books/leadersh…
5) Lastly, Robert Caro has written some of the best books ever on the utilization of power, and his portrait of New York public works king Robert Moses, THE POWER BROKER, is a figurative and literal giant of a book: bookshop.org/books/the-powe…
PS: I've previously mentioned Caro's LBJ biographies, which are just some of the greatest nonfiction ever written. I wish he'd hurry up and finish the last volume so we can find out how LBJ's presidency goes!
PPS: One final book that's not exactly about leadership but focus on lessons in decision-making: My friend Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator, wrote what has basically become the gold standard of negotiation books, NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE: bookshop.org/books/never-sp…
Those are tonight's #GMGReads. What are your favorite books on leadership and decision-making? What did you read this weekend? Share! Tune in tomorrow night for the final two nights of #GMGReads (for now). #avidreadersunite
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.