Famous People's Book Pick: Financial Times: Business Book of the Year 2005

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Business Book of the Year 2005 Winner

Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, an exuberant account of the challenges and benefits of globalisation, has won the inaugural Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

The World Is Flat: A Brief History Of The Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman

(history, nonfiction, science)

"In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.

Thomas L. Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work at The New York Times. He is the author of three best-selling books: From Beiruit to Jerusalem (FSG, 1989), winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction and still considered to be the definitive work on the Middle East, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (FSG, 1999), and Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 (FSG, 2002). He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his family."

Source:

http://www.ft.com

Business Book of the Year 2005 Finnalist

Freakonomics by Stephen J. Dubner

(economics, business books, nonfiction, science)

"Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world."

The Travels Of A T-shirt In The Global Economy: An Economist Examines The Markets, Power, And Politics Of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli

"The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy takes the reader on a fascinating, around-the-world journey to reveal the economic and political lessons from the life story of a simple t-shirt. Over five years, business professor Pietra Rivoli traveled from a Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory to a used clothing market in Africa, to investigate compelling questions about the politics, economics, ethics, and history of modern business and globalization. Using the story of the t-shirt to illustrate the major issues of the globalization debate, this uniquely entertaining business book offers a surprising, enlightening, and balanced look at one of the major topics of our time"

Disneywar: The Battle For The Magic Kingdom by James B. Stewart

(business books, children books, IT books, food and cooking, health, history, literature and fiction, mystery and thrillers, nonfiction, parenting, religion and spirituality, romance, science, teens)

"DisneyWar is the breathtaking, dramatic inside story of what drove America's best-known entertainment company to civil war, told by one of our most acclaimed writers and reporters.

Stewart describes how Eisner lost his chairmanship and why he felt obliged to resign as CEO, effective 2006. No other book so thoroughly penetrates the secretive world of the corporate boardroom. DisneyWar is an enthralling tale of one of America's most powerful media and entertainment companies, the people who control it, and those trying to overthrow them.

DisneyWar is an epic achievement. It tells a story that -- in its sudden twists, vivid, larger-than-life characters, and thrilling climax -- might itself have been the subject of a Disney animated classic -- except that it's all true.

James B. Stewart is the author of Heart of a Soldier, the bestselling Blind Eye and Blood Sport, and the blockbuster Den of Thieves. A former Page-One editor at The Wall Street Journal, Stewart won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for his reporting on the stock market crash and insider trading. He is a regular contributor to SmartMoney and The New Yorker. He lives in New York"

The Search: How Google And Its Rivals Rewrote The Rules Of Business And Transformed Our Culture by John Battelle

(communications, business books, IT books)

"For anyone who wants to understand how Google really succeeded -- and the implications of a world in which every click can be preserved forever -- THE SEARCH is an eye-opening and indispensable read.

John Battelle is a cofounding editor of Wired and the founder of The Industry Standard, as well as TheStandard.com. He is currently program chair for the Web 2.0 conference, a columnist for Business 2.0, and the founder, chairman, and publisher of Federated Media Publishing, Inc. "

Fast Second : How Smart Companies Bypass Radical Innovation To Enter And Dominate New Markets by Paul A. Geroski

(leadership, management / leadership, business books, science)

"Discover why being a "fast second" is often more financially rewarding than being at the cutting edge.

If you get there first, you'll lead the pack, right? Not necessarily! The skill-sets of most established companies, say strategy experts Constantinos Markides and Paul Geroski, are far better suited to scaling up newly created markets pioneered by others (in other words, being "fast seconds") than to creating these markets from scratch. In Fast Second, they explore the characteristics of new markets, describe the skills needed to create and compete in them, and show how these skills match up with different types of companies. Drawing on examples of successful fast-second firms such as Microsoft, Amazon, Canon, JVC, Heinz, and many others, they illustrate how to determine which new markets have the potential to be successful and how to move into them before the competition does, when to make a move into a new market, how to scale up a market, where to position a company in the market, and whether to be a colonizer or a consolidator"