Book Reviews

Thought Leaders and Their Writings

I enormously respect, appreciate, and am grateful to those who write and selflessly share their ever unmatched creations, imaginings, insights, foresights with the world. They do the hard work; they dive deeper and deeper into life, human soul and psyche and bequest their life’s work to us, their precious treasure. Selecting a few giants from an ocean filled with incomparable talent is inherently unfair and arbitrary. But that is exactly what I have done with hopes of forgiveness for my omissions and failings. The selected thought leaders have in some way added my understanding of leadership, culture, and strategy domains – my areas of special interest.

1.     Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  • The Brothers Karamazov (One long passage in that, entitled, The Grand Inquisitor, is filled with insights into how the world really works).
  • Crime and Punishment (a psychological masterpiece).

2.    Kautilya

  • Arthasastra, translated by Patrick Olivelle. It is a no-nonsense, realistic, objective approach to human nature and governance. The policy prescriptions for leadership and strategy are contextual to the era.

3.    Niccolò Machiavelli

  • The Prince. It is similar in many ways to Kautilya’s Arthasastra, but less harsh.

4.    Marcus Aurelius

  • The Emperor’s Handbook. This Roman Emperor left his mushing for living and governance. He wrote, “Bear in mind that the measure of a person is the worth of the things he/she cares about;” and “Are my guiding principles healthy and robust on this hangs everything.” Clayton Christensen expands on the latter in his book, How you will measure your life?

5.    Plutarch

  • Essays

6.    Alessandro Manzoni

  • The Betrothed. A psychological masterpiece only Manzoni can write.

7.    Victor Hugo

  • Les Miserables – Everyone’s all-time favorite.

8.    Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle)

  • The Red and the Black

9.    Montaigne

  • The Complete Essays of Montaigne, translated by Donald M. Frame. A simple guide to everyday living.

10. Friedrich Nietzsche

  • Twilight of Idols
  • Beyond Good and Evil
  • Human, All Too Human
  • Ecce Homo
  • On the Genealogy of Morality

11. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  • Sorrow of a Young Werther
  • Faust
  • Elective Affinities

12. Guy de Maupassant

  • Bel-Ami
  • Peirre et Jean
  • A Woman’s Life (Une Vie)

 

Recent Works

1.    Jagdish Sheth and Andrew Sobel

  • Clients for Life (A great book for general advisors and consultants; it has influenced me tremendously)

2.    Clayton Christensen

  • How will You Measure Your Life? (Thought leadership with ethics and spirituality)

3.    Nitin Nohria

  • The Arc of Ambition

4.    Theodore Levitt

  • Ted Levitt on Marketing (What an original thinker!)

5.    Peter Drucker

  • The Effective Executive
  • Management Challenges for the 21st Century

6.    George J. Stigler

  • University of Chicago Selected Papers Series:
  • a. The Proper Economic Role of the State
  • b. The Intellectual and the Market Place

7.    Milton Friedman

  • Capitalism and Freedom