“Books of the Year” (Recommendations)

2015

William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (Free Press, 2015).

Steven Salaita, Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom (Haymarket Books, 2015).

Miya Tokumitsu, Do What You Love and Other Lies About Success and Happiness (Regan Arts., 2015).

Fareed Zakaria, In Defense of a Liberal Education (W.W. Norton and Company, 2015).

2014

Andrew Hussey.The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs (Faber and Faber, 2014)

Michael Looft. Inspired Finance: The Role of Faith in Microfinance and International Development (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)

Megan McArdle, The Upside of Down: Why Failing Well is Key to Success (Viking, 2014)

Dayo Olopade. The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014)

Angel Rabasa and Cheryl Bernard. Eurojihad: Patterns of Islamist Radicalization and Terrorism in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Brigid Schulte. Overwhelmed: Love, Work, and Play When No One Has the Time (Sarah Crichton Books, 2014).

Lisa Tessman. Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality (Oxford University Press, 2014)

David Zweig. Invisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion (Portfolio, 2014)

2013

John L. Allen, Jr. The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Line of Anti-Christian Persecution (Image, 2013)

Sheri Fink, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital (Crown, 2013)

Adam Grant. Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success (Penguin Books, 2013)

Steven J. Harper. The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis (Basic Books, 2013)

Stephen Hopgood. The Endtimes of Human Rights (Cornell University Press, 2013).

Vikton Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier. Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think (Eamonn Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013)

Moises Naim. The End of Power (Basic Books, 2013).

George Packer. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2013)

Norman E. Rosenthal. The Gift of Adversity: The Unexpected Benefits of Life’s Difficulties, Setbacks, and Imperfections (Tarcher, 2013).

Douglas Rushkoff. Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now (Current Hardcover, 2013)

Jeffrey Selingo. College (Un)bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students (New Harvest, 2013).

Tracy Thompson. The New Mind of the South (Simon & Shuster, 2013)

Malala Yousafzai. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban (Little, Brown & Company, 2013).

2012

Lori Andrews, I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy (Free Press, 2012)

Susan Cain. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking (Crown, 2012)

Andrew Delbanco, College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be (Princeton University Press, 2012)

Eric Klinenberg, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone (Penguin, 2012)

Enrico Moretti, The New Geography of Jobs (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012).

Kathleen Newman, The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents, and the Private Toll of Global Competition (Beacon Press, 2012)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Random House, 2012)

Brian Z. Tamanaha, Failing Law Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2012)

Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy. Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back (Free Press, 2012)

2011

Ted Fishman,
Shock of Gray: The Aging of the World’s Population and How it Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival, and Nation Against Nation (Simon & Shuster, 2011)

Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2011)

S. Nassir Ghaemi, A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness(Penguin, 2011)

Paul Gilding, The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World (Bloomsbury Press, 2011)

Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke, The Price of Freedom Denied (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

Susan Jacoby, Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of Old Age(Pantheon, 2011)

Monica Duffy Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy Samuel Shah, God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (W.W. Norton, 2011)

Rebecca Traister,Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women (Simon & Shuster, 2011)

2010

Eliza L. Griswold, The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2010)

Sheena Iyengar, The Art of Choosing (Twelve, 2010)

Martha C. Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities(Princeton University Press, 2010)

Timothy R. Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi(Penguin, 2010)

Ann Temkin, Abstract Expressionism at the Museum of Modern Art (Museum of Modern Art, 2010)

2009

John L. Allen, Jr.
The Future Church: How Ten Trends Are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church (Doubleday, 2009)

David W. Anthony and Jennifer Y. Chi, The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC (Princeton University Press, 2009)

Vivian Endicott Barnett, Christian Derouet, and Tracy Bashkoff Kandinsky(Gugghenheim Museum, 2009)

Barry Bergdoll, Leah Dickerman, Benjamin Buchloh, and Brigid Doherty, Bauhaus, 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2009)

Kathleen Gerson, The Unfinished Revolution: How a New Generation Is Reshaping Family, Work, and Gender in America(Oxford University Press, 2009)

Chip Hastings, Hot & Hot Fish Club: A Celebration of Food, Family, and Traditions (Running Press, 2009)

Ninni Holmqvist, The Unit (Other Press, 2009)

John Micklethwaite and Adrian Woolridge,
God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World(Penguin, 2009)

Dominique Moisi, The Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation, and Hope Are Changing the World (Doubleday, 2009)

Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson,
The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger (Bloomsbury Press, 2009)

2008

Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart (Houghton Mifflin, 2008)

Courtney Cowart, An American Awakening: From Ground Zero to Katrina the People We Are Free to Be(Seabury Books, 2008)

Michael McCullough, Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct (Jossey-Bass, 2008)

2007

Anthony Kronman, Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life (Yale University Press, 2007)

Michael Zielenziger, Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation (Vintage, 2007)

2006

Madeleine Albright, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (Harper, 2006)

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (W.W. Norton, 2006)

Tamara Draut, Strapped: Why America’s Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead (Doubleday, 2006)

Michael Eric Dyson, Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster (Basic, 2006)

Catharine A. MacKinnon, Are Women Human?: And Other International Dialogues (Harvard University Press, 2006)

Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Viking, 2006)

2005

Anselm Kiefer, Heaven and Earth (Prestel, 2005)

Catharine A. MacKinnon, Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws (Belknap Press, 2005)

Lisa Tessman, Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles (Oxford University Press, 2005)

2004

Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Viking, 2004)

2003

Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy (Metropolitan Books, 2003)

Carl Elliott, Better than Well: American Medicine Meets the Anerican Dream (W.W. Norton, 2003)

Chris Lowney, Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World (Loyola Press, 2003)

Jennifer A. Parks, No Place Like Home?: Feminist Ethics and Home Health Care (Indiana University Press, 2003)

2002

Philip Rieff, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis (Simon & Shuster, 2002)