The Financial Times and McKinsey's best business books of 2021 cover pressing topics like global cybersecurity, climate change, and the opioid epidemic
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- The Financial Times & McKinsey announced the best business book of 2021 on December 1.
- Judges chose "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends" by journalist Nicole Perlroth.
- Below, find this year's shortlist — ranging in topics from the opioid epidemic to climate change.
The Financial Times and McKinsey have announced the winner and finalists for the 2021 Business Book of the Year award.
This year's winner, "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends" by "New York Times" reporter Nicole Perlroth, delivers a crucial and thorough analysis of the cyber arms race, encountering hackers, spies, and criminals clamoring to infiltrate essential computer systems.
"Nicole Perlroth has done something that hasn't been done before: going this deep into the mysterious world of hackers," Financial Times editor Roula Khalaf said in a press release. "Cyber security isn't featuring highly enough on CEOs' agenda. I hope this award will prompt them to read this book and pay attention."
McKinsey's Managing Partner Europe, Magnus Tyeman, echoed the importance and singularity of Perlroth's book. "Nicole Perlroth has written a book that is more than just a timely wake-up call to the fact that the world has largely ignored the realities and profound implications of the arms race between hackers, cybercriminals and businesses and national governments," Tyeman said. "It is an alarming book, one in which the author makes a compelling, granular and matter-of-fact case for how vulnerable global computer systems have become, even as it also comes with an urgent plea for specific and systematic action."
Below, you'll find the six books listed on this year's shortlist — stacked with journalists and ranging in topics from the opioid epidemic (by the prolific author of "Say Nothing") to racism, climate change, and meritocracy.
The winner of the Business Book of the Year receives a prize of £30,000, and runner-ups win £10,000 each.
Below are the six books on The Financial Times & McKinsey 2021 Business Book of the Year shortlist:
Descriptions provided by Amazon and edited for length and clarity.
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Available at Amazon and Bookshop from $9.03
"This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends" is cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth's discovery, unpacked. A intrepid journalist unravels an opaque, code-driven market from the outside in — encountering spies, hackers, arms dealers, mercenaries and a few unsung heroes along the way. As the stakes get higher and higher in the rush to push the world's critical infrastructure online, "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends" is the urgent and alarming discovery of one of the world's most extreme threats.
*The hardcover version of "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends" is currently on backorder, but the paperback version is available to preorder.
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Available on Amazon and Bookshop from $20.68
We rarely stop to consider where they have come from. But we should.
In "The World for Sale," two leading journalists lift the lid on one of the least scrutinised corners of the world economy: The workings of the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard and sell the earth's resources.
The result is an eye-opening tour through the wildest frontiers of the global economy, as well as a revelatory guide to how capitalism really works.
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Available on Amazon and Bookshop from $19.50
A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. From the prize-winning and bestselling author of "Say Nothing," as featured in the HBO documentary "Crime of the Century."
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Available on Amazon and Bookshop from $19.52
An essential tool for individuals, organizations, and communities of all sizes to jump-start dialogue on racism and bias. "The Conversation" is meant to be used to transform well-intentioned statements on diversity into concrete actions. Livingston, a leading Harvard social psychologist, is an expert on the science underlying bias and racism in organizations.
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Available on Amazon and Bookshop from $24.34
A renowned climate scientist shows how fossil fuel companies have waged a 30-year campaign to deflect blame and responsibility and delay action on climate change — and he offers a battle plan for how we can save the planet.
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Available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.79
"The Aristocracy of Talent" is a wide-ranging analysis of the backlash against meritocracy, which makes the controversial case for a revival of competition according to talent. Rather than abandoning meritocracy, he says, we should call for its renewal.