Whoa these are great! Risk and Culture especially seems like gold for this! American Tech Slip, I can’t find about, very cool find. Thanks for the recs, I can’t wait to look into these!
I have been studying progress about 10 years and have written a few books on the topic. If you are interested in reading books on innovation, I would recommend checking out my online library of book summaries. Many of the books listed above are in my library, and there are about 300 book summaries related to progress.
You might also want to subscribe to my Substack as I have about 500 articles on the topic.
The Master Switch by Tim Wu is another great book that gives you historical perspective between the tensions between business realities and innovators need to disrupt things
If I were you I would swap 4 and 5. Heinrich wrote secrets of our success first and it is good to have that background before reading his next book. In fact, they were originally going to be one book but due to length etc he published Secrets first. One of my favorite books in this genre.
It’s been 20 years since I read it but I remember schoenbrod’s “Saving our environment from Washington” being pretty good. The new Yoni Appelbaum book “stuck” is excellent.
I was also going to reccomend farewell to alms! Heinrich responds to it in the end of Secrets if I recall, (or possibly at the end of Weirdest) not by name, he just referred to generic as opposed to cultural revolutionary explanations. So I would put that ahead of Heinrichs work, in terms of the order on which you read them. What a great list - wish I had time for this!
The Malthusian moment : global population growth and the birth of American environmentalism
by Thomas Robertson
America's technology slip
by Simon Ramon
Changing attitudes toward American technology
by Hughes, Thomas Parke
Zero to One by Peter Thiel (Interesting book, no matter political views)
Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers
by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky
The American Technological Challenge: Stagnation and Decline in the 21st Century
Book by Jan Vijg
Whoa these are great! Risk and Culture especially seems like gold for this! American Tech Slip, I can’t find about, very cool find. Thanks for the recs, I can’t wait to look into these!
I don’t have specific recommendations, but I would try contacting Matt Clancy – he works on the economics of innovation and has an excellent Substack.
Thank you! I’ll follow him and reach out.
Just ran across your Substack and subscribed.
I have been studying progress about 10 years and have written a few books on the topic. If you are interested in reading books on innovation, I would recommend checking out my online library of book summaries. Many of the books listed above are in my library, and there are about 300 book summaries related to progress.
You might also want to subscribe to my Substack as I have about 500 articles on the topic.
https://techratchet.com/category/book-summaries/technology-book-review/
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips
Great to meet you Michael! Your Substack is great! I just subscribed.
Enjoy!
Excellent list but I'm gonna go broke buying them!
Haha, same! Some are on Spotify's audiobook option that lets you stream several books per month!
The Master Switch by Tim Wu is another great book that gives you historical perspective between the tensions between business realities and innovators need to disrupt things
If I were you I would swap 4 and 5. Heinrich wrote secrets of our success first and it is good to have that background before reading his next book. In fact, they were originally going to be one book but due to length etc he published Secrets first. One of my favorite books in this genre.
It’s been 20 years since I read it but I remember schoenbrod’s “Saving our environment from Washington” being pretty good. The new Yoni Appelbaum book “stuck” is excellent.
Im a big Heinrich fan but id also recommend a Farewell to Alms as a semi-contrarian take
Thank you!
I was also going to reccomend farewell to alms! Heinrich responds to it in the end of Secrets if I recall, (or possibly at the end of Weirdest) not by name, he just referred to generic as opposed to cultural revolutionary explanations. So I would put that ahead of Heinrichs work, in terms of the order on which you read them. What a great list - wish I had time for this!
I've switched them and added Farewell to Alms! Apparently I bought Farewell to Alms in 2017 - glad to finally get around to diving in! Thanks both.