Alumni Books

The Saudi Kingdom
by Ali Al Shihabi (MBA 1985)
(Markus Wiener Publishers)

Al Shihabi presents an analysis of Saudi Arabia’s political stability in light of mounting domestic and international challenges facing the country today. Addressing Saudi Arabia’s inert monarchy, its alliance with the Wahhabi establishment, and its increasingly dangerous environment populated with a diverse set of enemies, he looks at the prospects for the survival of the monarchy and suggests ideas for reform.

Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless Questions for Resolving Your Toughest Problems at Work
by Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. (MBA 1978)
(Harvard Business Review Press)

Part of a manager’s job is making tough calls, and the hardest challenge can be resolving “gray area” problems, situations where analysis of the facts and data fails to provide a clear answer. Gray areas test managers’ skills and humanity. Badaracco presents a five-question framework offering a way for managers to balance their analytical work with the human side and find a way forward when analysis falls short.

Chasing Rainbows and Beyond: A Spectrum of Life and Hope
by Robert Lewis Berman (MBA 1957)
(TriMark Press Inc.)

Berman offers four humanitarian Rainbows of Hope, personal and ambitious projects that have yet to reach fruition: the Hope Scholarship, which provides funds to help eligible high school graduates attend college; Hope for Starving Children, to make sure no child goes to bed hungry; Hope for Tolerance, involving the development of a “Center and Museum of Tolerance,” to be housed at the University of Mississippi; and, most important and personal, Hope for a Cure for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Berman provides a blueprint for realizing each of these projects.

Slaughter House Chronicles
by Frank Biasi (PMD 41, 1981)
(F.X. Biasi Jr.)

This novel tells a story of illegal drugs, murder, and a 150-year-old rivalry between two of North Coast California’s most powerful and affluent family dynasties.

Dragons: 10 Entrepreneurs Who Built Britain
by Liam Byrne (MBA 2000)
(Head of Zeus)

Byrne examines British business endeavors through the lives of ten titans of commerce. Beginning with the Tudor merchants who transformed England’s economy via trade with the New World, the author traces an entrepreneurial golden line through men such as Thomas Pitt, savior of the East India Company; financier Nathan Rothschild, creator of the modern bond market; and William Lever, of the employee-owned John Lewis Partnership.

Entrepreneurs in Every Generation: How Successful Family Businesses Develop Their Next Leaders
by Allan Cohen (MBA 1961) and Pramodita Sharma
(Berrett-Koehler Publishers)

Like other companies, family-run enterprises must develop leadership and entrepreneurial skills. But they must also manage family dynamics. The authors show how enterprising families can transmit the hunger for excellence across generations. Using examples of firms that flourished and those that failed, they describe the practices that characterize entrepreneurial individuals, families, and organizations and offer pragmatic advice.

The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class
by Edward Conard (MBA 1982)
(Portfolio)

Conard challenges the arguments of economists like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz offering remedies for income inequality. Drawing on a historical study of the ebbs and flows of the US economy, he proposes ways to grow the economy faster, which will benefit everyone on the income spectrum.

Harp
by Nidhi Dalmia (OPM 22, 1995)
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

Set in the late sixties, this romantic novel is about love, longing, and coming of age. It follows the lives of three main protagonists—a young man traveling in Europe and behind the Iron Curtain, a young woman who has a calling to music, and another young woman who has loved and lost once—as they experience the cultural, sexual, and student revolutions and the music of the age.

The Inner Lives of Markets: How People Shape Them—And They Shape Us
by Ray Fisman (PhDBE 1998) and Tim Sullivan
(PublicAffairs)

Breakthrough companies like Amazon and Uber have disrupted the old ways and made the economy work better, thanks to technology. At least, that’s how the story of the modern economy is usually told. But the authors show that the revolution is bigger than technology: it is really a story about the transformation of markets. From the auction theories powering Google’s ad algorithms to the models that online retailers use to prevent internet fraud, even the most high-tech modern businesses are empowered by theory first envisioned by economists.

Pakistan, India and the Bomb: Spy versus Counterspy
by James Glenn (MBA 1965)
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)

This thriller, set in 1972, involves a Pakistani professor, a CIA spy, an American businessman, and India’s secret development of an atomic bomb. Related events include the KGB’s influence on Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government and Pakistan’s plan to destroy India’s bomb-making facilities, which could precipitate a war between the countries.

Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned over a Beer or Two
by Jim Koch (JD/MBA 1978)
(Flatiron Books)

The founder of the Boston Beer Company, makers of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, offers his perspective on business, beer, and turning one’s passion into a successful company or career. Koch’s innovative business model and frank stories offer counterintuitive lessons applicable to business and to life. He has surprising advice on sales, marketing, hiring, and company culture.

Bedtime Stories for Capitalists: Protection from the Wolves of Wall Street
by Sky Lucas (MBA 1983) and Jeff Hamer
(Amazon Digital Services)

The authors, two stock-market veterans, share their hard-won wisdom through entertaining and insightful tales about the cruel world of stocks, money management, and irrational investors.

The Winemakers: A Novel of Wine and Secrets
by Jan Moran (MBA 1989)
(St. Martin's Griffin)

Moran tells the story of Caterina Rosetta, heir of her family’s vineyards in California, and the complications—involving an old murder and the revelation of her and her mother’s secrets—that develop when she moves to Tuscany to take charge of a vineyard she’s inherited.

Fearful Odds: A Memoir of Vietnam and Its Aftermath
by Charles W. Newhall (MBA 1971)
(Bibliotheca Brightside LLC)

This is the true story of a young Army officer, assigned to lead a platoon on a reconnaissance mission in Vietnam in 1968, and his later years of severe trauma, guilt, grief, and anger when the mission goes catastrophically wrong. Despite experiencing the effects of PTSD and a family tragedy, Newhall had a successful entrepreneurial career. He has come to terms with his past and offers hope, inspiration, and coping tools for anyone who has been affected by post-traumatic stress, depression, and mild traumatic brain disorders.

Nawabs, Nudes, Noodles: India through 50 Years of Advertising
by Ambi Parameswaran (AMP 186, 2014)
(Pan Macmillan India)

Parameswaran examines how advertising has evolved in India in the past fifty years, reflecting its culture, politics, and economy. From sartorial taste and food habits to marriage and old age, from music and language to celebrities and censorship, he looks at over a hundred ads to study how the Indian consumer has changed over the past five decades and how advertising and society have shaped each other.

The Conversational Firm: Rethinking Bureaucracy in the Age of Social Media
by Catherine J. Turco (MBA 2003)
(Columbia University Press)

A fast-growing social media marketing company, TechCo encourages all of its employees to speak up. By promoting open dialogue across the corporate hierarchy, the firm has fostered an engaged workforce and a strong capacity for change. Turco was embedded within TechCo for ten months, and this book is her ethnographic analysis of what worked at the company and what didn’t.

China’s Next Strategic Advantage: From Imitation to Innovation
by George Yip (MBA 1976) and Bruce McKern (DBA 1972)
(MIT Press)

China is moving from a strategy of imitation to one of innovation, and western businesses need to prepare for a tidal wave of innovation from China The authors explain this transformation and propose strategies for both Western and Chinese companies. They provide case studies of successful firms, outline ten ways in which the managerial and innovative capabilities of Chinese firms differ from those of Western firms, and describe how multinationals doing business in China can become part of the Chinese ecosystem of new knowledge and technology.

Faculty Books

The Content Trap: A Strategist's Guide to Digital Change
by Bharat Anand
(Random House)

Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the content business. But that comes with risks that Professor Anand teaches us how to recognize and navigate. He examines a range of businesses around the world, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted and from the New York Times to the Economist. Drawing on these stories and on the latest research in economics, strategy, and marketing, he reveals important lessons, smashes myths, and reorients strategy. Flourishing companies are finding that the connections they foster are more important than the content they create. Success comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers’ connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by.

Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless Questions for Resolving Your Toughest Problems at Work
by Joseph Badaracco
(Harvard Business Review Press)

Part of a manager’s job is making tough calls, and the hardest challenge can be resolving “gray area” problems, situations where analysis of the facts and data fails to provide a clear answer. Gray areas test managers’ skills and humanity. Professor Badaracco presents a five-question framework offering a way for managers to balance their analytical work with the human side and find a way forward when analysis falls short.

Experiences in Liberal Arts and Science Education from America, Europe, and Asia: A Dialogue across Continents
edited by William C. Kirby and Marijk C. van der Wende
(Palgrave Macmillan)

This book highlights the experiences of international leaders in liberal arts and science education from around the world as they discuss regional trends and models, with a specific focus on developments in and cooperation with China. Focusing on why this model responds to the 21st- century requirements for excellence and relevance in undergraduate education, the book’s contributors examine if it can be implemented in different contexts and across academic cultures, structures, and traditions.

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