Books like Where Is My Flying Car?

01

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Matt Ridley · Economics

Matt Ridley's argument in The Rational Optimist is evolutionary in the literal sense: he treats the expansion of human prosperity as the result of a Darwinian process operating at the cultural level, where ideas combine, compete, and recombine to produce innovations that raise living standards.

Both dig into innovation.

02

Enlightenment Now

Steven Pinker · Science

Enlightenment Now is Steven Pinker's argument that the ideals of the Enlightenment — reason, science, humanism, and progress — have been responsible for a dramatic and continuing improvement in human wellbeing across virtually every measurable dimension, and that these ideals are under threat from counter-Enlightenment movements on both the left and the right.

Both dig into progress.

03

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson · Economics

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that the fundamental difference between rich and poor countries is not geography, culture, or bad luck.

A kindred science read.

04

The Second Machine Age

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee · Economics

The Second Machine Age is Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee's argument that digital technology has entered a qualitatively new phase — one in which machines can perform cognitive tasks previously reserved for humans, creating economic disruption and opportunity simultaneously.

A kindred science read.

05

The Innovator's Dilemma

Clayton M. Christensen · Business

Christensen's argument, published in 1997, is deceptively simple: the very practices that make companies excellent at serving their current customers — listening carefully, investing in proven technologies, targeting the most profitable segments — are precisely what causes them to miss disruptive innovations.

Both dig into innovation.

06

Civilized to Death

Christopher Ryan · Science

Christopher Ryan is the co-author of Sex at Dawn, a 2010 book that argued human beings are not naturally monogamous.

Both dig into progress.

07

Four Laws That Drive the Universe

Peter Atkins · Science

Peter Atkins, one of the most respected chemistry educators of the twentieth century, wrote this book as a compact but uncompromising account of the four laws of thermodynamics.

Both dig into energy.

08

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Walter Isaacson · Science

The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's history of the digital revolution, tracing the development of computers and the internet from Ada Lovelace's conceptualization of programming in the 1840s through the emergence of the modern internet, personal computer, and smartphone.

Both dig into innovation.

09

Americana

Bhu Srinivasan · History

Americana is Bhu Srinivasan's attempt to tell the history of American capitalism through its defining industries and the entrepreneurs who built them.

Both dig into innovation.

10

Bad Pharma

Ben Goldacre · Health

Bad Pharma is Ben Goldacre's sustained indictment of the pharmaceutical industry's manipulation of clinical trial evidence, and of the regulatory and academic institutions that have failed to stop it.

Both dig into regulation.

11

Blue Ocean Strategy

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne · Business

Blue Ocean Strategy is Kim and Mauborgne's case that the most successful companies don't compete in existing markets by beating rivals at their own game — they create new market spaces where competition is irrelevant.

Both dig into innovation.

12

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

Robert Coram · Biography

Boyd is Robert Coram's biography of Colonel John Boyd, the Air Force fighter pilot who became one of the most influential military strategists of the twentieth century without ever having commanded a major unit, written a best-selling book, or achieved the rank that would have made him famous while alive.

Both dig into innovation.