Best Business Books: 2025: Home

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A terrific book...Powerful and persuasive." --Fareed Zakaria "Spectacular...Offers a comprehensive indictment of the current problems and a clear path forward...Klein and Thompson usher in a mood shift. They inspire hope and enlarge the imagination." --David Brooks, The New York Times From bestselling authors and journalistic titans Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty, face up to the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don't have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven't built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget--if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that's clicking into focus now has been building for decades--because we haven't been building enough. Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear's villains. Rather, one generation's solutions have become the next gener­ation's problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished. Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we can move from a liberalism that not only protects and pre­serves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel.

It used to be that ravaging another country's economy required blockading its ports and laying siege to its cities. Now all it takes is a statement posted online by the U.S. government. In Chokepoints, Edward Fishman, a former top State Department sanctions official, takes us deep into the back rooms of power to reveal the untold history of the last two decades of U.S. foreign policy, in which America renounced the gospel of globalization and waged a new kind of economic war. As Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Ayatollah Khamenei wreaked havoc on the world stage, mavericks within the U.S. government built a fearsome new arsenal of economic weapons, exploiting America's dominance in global finance and technology. Successive U.S. presidents have relied on these unconventional weapons to address the most pressing national-security threats, for good and for ill. Chokepoints provides a thrilling account of one of the most critical geopolitical developments of our time, demystifying the complex strategies the U.S. government uses to harness the power of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Big Oil against America's enemies. At the center of the narrative is an eclectic group of policy innovators: the diplomats, lawyers, and financial whizzes who've masterminded America's escalating economic wars against Russia, China, and Iran. Economic warfare has become the primary way the United States confronts international crises and counters rivals. Sometimes it has achieved spectacular success; other times, bitter failure. The result we live with today is a new world order: an economic arms race among great powers and a fracturing global economy. Chokepoints is the definitive account of how America pioneered this new, hard-hitting style of economic war - and how it's changing the world.

How the euro survived a series of crises, and how to make it more resilient The euro has survived crises unimagined at its founding: the financial meltdown of 2007-2009, the sovereign debt crisis of 2010-2012, the pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The European Central Bank fought these crises with dramatic policy innovations, buying up vast amounts of debt and providing large loans to banks. But now everyone expects the ECB to intervene routinely, and the euro is more fragile as a result. Crisis Cycle recounts this history and offers recommendations for restoring a durable monetary union. Monetary and fiscal policy are intertwined, especially in a currency union like the eurozone. Member states can be tempted to borrow and spend too much, and then count on the ECB to rescue them by printing money to buy their bonds. To avoid these disincentives, the ECB was founded with a narrow mandate: use interest rates to pursue price stability, and don't buy sovereign debt. Debt and deficit rules would keep countries from getting into trouble. The ECB's emergency innovations brought back these disincentives. How can the EU avoid larger and larger bailouts? The authors argue that Europe needs a joint fiscal institution that can provide temporary help to sovereigns, a resolution mechanism so sovereign default is a motivating possibility, and bank reform that ensures sovereign default will not bring down the financial system. This timely book shows how to restore the euro's ambitious and effective founding framework. The unique group of authors combine extensive policy experience and authoritative academic credentials.

"Authoritative... a tale that sits at the heart of the most significant geopolitical relationship today." - Financial Times "There's probably no better account of China's rise to economic dominance as seen through the prism of a single company." - The Wall Street Journal ABOUT THE BOOK The untold story of the mysterious company that shook the world. On the coast of southern China, an eccentric entrepreneur spent three decades steadily building an obscure telecom company into one of the world's most powerful technological empires with hardly anyone noticing. This all changed in December 2018, when the detention of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies' female scion, sparked an international hostage standoff, poured fuel on the US-China trade war, and suddenly thrust the mysterious company into the global spotlight. In House of Huawei, Washington Post technology reporter Eva Dou pieces together a remarkable portrait of Huawei's reclusive founder, Ren Zhengfei, and how he built a sprawling corporate empire--one whose rise Western policymakers have become increasingly obsessed with halting. Based on wide-ranging interviews and painstaking archival research, House of Huawei dissects the global web of power, money, influence, surveillance, bloodshed, and national glory that Huawei helped to build--and that has also ensnared it.

This book was designed to reduce mistakes. Your mistakes with money. Tiny errors, epic fails and everything in between. You can do thousands of things right, but make just a few of the errors we discuss, and you destroy much of your portfolio. If you could learn how to avoid the unforced errors investors make all the time, you would make your life so much richer and less stressful. The counterintuitive truth is avoiding errors is much more important than scoring wins. How Not To Invest shows you a few simple tools and models that will help you avoid the most common mistakes people make with their money. Learn these, and you are ahead of 98% of your peers. Make fewer errors, end up with more money. Barry Ritholtz lays out the most common errors investors make. He reveals his favorite mistakes, including the lessons we can learn from some of the wealthiest and most error-prone investors. We all make mistakes. The goal with this book is to help you make fewer of them, and to have the mistakes you do make be less expensive.

An award-winning economic journalist on why the US dollar is positioned to maintain global primacy--and what that means for America and the world   "Magisterial."--Edward Chancellor, Reuters   Prophecies that the dollar will lose its status as the world's dominant currency have echoed for decades--and are increasing in volume. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts claim that Bitcoin or other blockchain-based monetary units will replace the dollar. Foreign policy hawks warn that China's renminbi poses a lethal threat to the greenback. And sound money zealots predict that mounting US debt and inflation will surely erode the dollar's value to the point of irrelevancy.   Contra the doomsayers, Paul Blustein shows that the dollar's standing atop the world's currency pyramid is impregnable, barring catastrophic policy missteps by the US government. Recounting how the United States has wielded the dollar to impose devastating sanctions against adversaries, Blustein explains that although targets such as Russia have found ways to limit the damage, Washington's financial weaponry will retain potency long into the future. His message, however, is that America must not be complacent about the dollar; the great power that its supremacy confers comes with commensurate responsibility.

For many decades, a sacred myth has ruled the minds of policymakers and business leaders: free markets, untouched by the soiled hands of government, bring us prosperity and stability. But it’s wrong. American policy makers, on the right and the left, have spent much of the past century actively shaping our markets for social and political goals. Their work behind the scenes and out of the headlines has served as a kind of “marketcraft,” resembling the statecraft of international relations. Economist and writer Chris Hughes takes us on a journey through the modern history of American capitalism, relating the captivating stories of the most effective marketcrafters and the ones who bungled the job. He reveals how both Republicans and Democrats have consistently attempted to organize markets for social and political reasons, like avoiding gasoline shortages, reducing inflation, fostering the American aviation and semiconductor industries, fighting climate change, and supporting financial innovation. In recent decades, the art of marketcraft has been lost to history, replaced by the myth that markets work best when they are unfettered and free. Hughes argues that by rediscovering the triumphs and failures of past marketcrafters, we can shape future markets, such as those in artificial intelligence and clean power production, to be innovative, stable, and inclusive. Groundbreaking, timely, and illuminating, this is a must-read for anyone interested in economic policy, financial markets, and the future of the American economy.

From the world's leading expert on negotiation, an essential guide to negotiating in any situation--whether over Zoom, across political and cultural divides, or during a supply chain crisis The world has changed dramatically in just the past few years--and so has the game of negotiation. COVID-19, Zoom, political polarization, the online economy, increasing economic globalization, and greater workplace diversity--all have transformed the who, what, where, and how of negotiation. Today, traditional negotiating tactics, while still effective, need to be tailored to vastly different situations and circumstances. In Negotiation: The Game Has Changed, legendary Harvard Business School professor Max Bazerman, a pioneer in the field of negotiation, shows you how to negotiate successfully today by adapting proven negotiation principles and strategies to the challenging new contexts you face--from negotiating across cultural and political differences to trying to reach an agreement over Zoom or during a supply chain crisis. Negotiation offers a groundbreaking new way of thinking about the importance of the unique context of any negotiation--and when and how it should influence how you negotiate. At the same time, the book provides a concise and expert overview of essential negotiating techniques for anyone new to the subject or who wants a refresher. The result is a must-read--a powerful toolkit for successfully negotiating in a world where the game of negotiation has changed.

A National Bestseller * Recommended by Financial Times as "What to Read in 2025"   "The central argument of Our Dollar, Your Problem--that the greenback's pre-eminence was never guaranteed and might plausibly be overturned--could hardly be more timely."--The Economist   A leading economist explores the global rise of the U.S. dollar and shows why its future stability is far from assured   Our Dollar, Your Problem argues that America's currency might not have reached today's lofty pinnacle without a certain amount of good luck. Drawing in part on his own experiences, including with policymakers and world leaders, Kenneth Rogoff animates the remarkable postwar run of the dollar--how it beat out the Japanese yen, the Soviet ruble, and the euro--and the challenges it faces today from crypto and the Chinese yuan, the end of reliably low inflation and interest rates, political instability, and the fracturing of the dollar bloc. Americans cannot take for granted that the Pax Dollar era will last indefinitely, not only because many countries are deeply frustrated with the system, but also because overconfidence and arrogance can lead to unforced errors. Rogoff shows how America's outsized power and exorbitant privilege can spur financial instability--not just abroad but also at home.

A provocative new theory of "the economy," its history, and its politics that better unites history and economics What is the economy, really? Is it a "market sector," a "general equilibrium," or the "gross domestic product"? Economics today has become so preoccupied with methods that economists risk losing sight of the economy itself. Meanwhile, other disciplines, although often intent on criticizing the methods of economics, have failed to articulate an alternative vision of the economy. Before the ascent of postwar neoclassical economics, fierce debates raged, as many different visions of the economy circulated and competed with one another. In The Real Economy, Jonathan Levy returns to the spirit of this earlier era, which, in all its contentiousness, gave birth to the discipline of economics. Drawing inspiration particularly from Thorstein Veblen and John Maynard Keynes, Levy proposes a theory of the economy that is open to rich empirical and historical scrutiny, covering topics that include the emergence of capitalism, the notion of radical uncertainty, the meaning of demand, the primal desire for money, the history of corporations, and contemporary globalization. Writing for anyone interested in the study of the economy, Levy provides an invaluable provocation for a broader debate in the social sciences and humanities concerning what "the economy" is.

How did America cease to be the land of opportunity? We take it for granted that good neighborhoods--with good schools and good housing--are only accessible to the wealthy. But in America, this wasn't always the case. Though for most of world history, your prospects were tied to where you were born, Americans came up with a revolutionary idea: If you didn't like your lot in life, you could find a better location and reinvent yourself there. Americans moved to new places with unprecedented frequency, and, for two hundred years, that remarkable mobility was the linchpin of American economic and social opportunity.   In this illuminating debut, Yoni Appelbaum, historian and journalist for The Atlantic, shows us that this idea has been under attack since reformers first developed zoning laws to ghettoize Chinese Americans in nineteenth-century Modesto, California. The century of legal segregation that ensued--from the zoning laws enacted to force Jewish workers back into New York's Lower East Side to the private-sector discrimination and racist public policy that trapped Black families in Flint, Michigan to Jane Jacobs' efforts to protect her vision of the West Village--has raised housing prices, deepened political divides, emboldened bigots, and trapped generations of people in poverty. Appelbaum shows us that these problems have a common explanation: people can't move as readily as they used to. They are, in a word, stuck. Cutting through more than a century of mythmaking, Stuck tells a vivid, surprising story of the people and ideas that caused our economic and social sclerosis and lays out common-sense ways to get Americans moving again.

"A lively biography. . . .  The story of how Nvidia became the hottest investment on Wall Street and a household name is fascinating." --Katie Notopoulos, The New York Times Book Review "Framed as a biography of Jensen Huang, the only CEO Nvidia has ever had, the book is also something more interesting and revealing: a window onto the intellectual, cultural, and economic ecosystem that has led to the emergence of superpowerful AI." --James Surowiecki, The Atlantic "Stephen Witt's deep reporting shines through every page of The Thinking Machine. The result is a page-turning biography of perhaps the most consequential CEO and company in the world." --David Epstein, New York Times bestselling author of Range Nvidia is as valuable as Apple and Microsoft. It has shaped the world as we know it. But its story is little known. This is the definitive story of the greatest technology company of our times. In June of 2024, thirty-one years after its founding in a Denny's restaurant, Nvidia became the most valuable corporation on Earth. The Thinking Machine is the astonishing story of how a designer of video game equipment conquered the market for AI hardware, and in the process re-invented the computer. Essential to Nvidia's meteoric success is its visionary CEO Jensen Huang, who more than a decade ago, on the basis of a few promising scientific results, bet his entire company on AI. Through unprecedented access to Huang, his friends, his investors, and his employees, Witt documents for the first time the company's epic rise and its single-minded and ferocious leader, now one of Silicon Valley's most influential figures. The Thinking Machine is the story of how Nvidia evolved to supplying hundred-million-dollar supercomputers. It is the story of a determined entrepreneur who defied Wall Street to push his radical vision for computing, becoming one of the wealthiest men alive. It is the story of a revolution in computer architecture, and the small group of renegade engineers who made it happen. And it's the story of our awesome and terrifying AI future, which Huang has billed as the 'next industrial revolution,' as a new kind of microchip unlocks hyper-realistic avatars, autonomous robots, self-driving cars, and new movies, art, and books, generated on command. This is the story of the company that is inventing the future.