strategy + business Best Books of 2009

The strategy + business annual books list is always one of the finest and most anticipated of the year. They get really smart and talented people who know how to pick 'em, and have them write (always highly intelligent and insightful) essays on their category—and, of course, the books in it. I've listed the picks below, but it really is worth heading over to strategy + business for the essays. (The links to the individual essays are in the headings below.) Clive Crook picks the best books on The Meltdown:

• In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic by David Wessel, Crown Business
• Financial Shock: Global Panic and Government Bailouts—How We Got Here and What Must Be Done to Fix It by Mark Zandi, FT Press*mdash;2nd edition
• Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and Worsened the Financial Crisis by John B. Taylor, Hoover Institution Press
• Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe by Gillian Tett, Free Press
• House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street by William D. Cohan,
• A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression by Richard A. Posner, Harvard University Press
• Managed by the Markets: How Finance Re-Shaped America by Gerald F. Davis, Oxford University Press

Charles Handy picks the Leadership books:

• The Puritan Gift: Reclaiming the American Dream amidst Global Financial Chaos by Kenneth Hopper & William Hopper, I. B. Tauris & Company—revised edition
• Transparency: How Leaders Create a Culture of Candor by Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman & James O'Toole with Patricia Ward Biederman, Jossey-Bass
• Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help by Edgar H. Schein, Berrett-Koehler
• Walk the Walk: The #1 Rule for Real Leaders by Alan Deutschman, Portfolio
• Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement by C. Julia Huang, Harvard University Press

Phil Rosenzweig picks the books on Strategy:

• The Invisible Edge: Taking Your Strategy to the Next Level Using Intellectual Property by Mark Blaxill and Ralph Eckardt, Portfolio
• Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management: Organizing for Innovation and Growth by David J. Teece, Oxford University Press
• Innovation Corrupted: The Origins and Legacy of Enron's Collapse by Malcolm S. Salter, Harvard University Press

Ayesha Khanna and Parag Khanna take on Globalization:

• The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab World Is Turning Away from the West and Rediscovering China by Ben Simpfendorfer, Palgrave Macmillan
• Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation by Nandan Nilekani, Penguin Press
• India's Global Powerhouses: How They Are Taking On the World by Nirmalya Kumar, with Pradipta K. Mohapatra and Suj Chandrasekhar, Harvard Business Press
• The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing by Ian Bremmer & Preston Keat, Oxford University Press
• Riches Among the Ruins: Adventures in the Dark Corners of the Global Economy by Robert P. Smith with Peter Zheutlin, AMACOM

Judith F. Samuelson picks the Management books:

• The Upside of the Downturn: Ten Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath by Geoff Colvin, Portfolio
• Managing by Henry Mintzberg, Berrett-Koehler
• Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life by John C. Bogle, Wiley
• The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman, Doubleday

Catharine P. Taylor finds the best books on Marketing:

• Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods by Shel Israel, Portfolio
• Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson, Hyperion
• The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It by John Gerzema and Ed Lebar, Jossey-Bass

Steven Levy looks at the best books on Technology:

• Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America by Julia Angwin, Random House
• Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig, Penguin
• Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters by Scott Rosenberg, Crown

James O'Toole picks the best Biographies:

• John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand by Richard Reeves, Overlook
• The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles, Knopf
• The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder, Bantam

As Theodore Kinni writes in the introduction to this year's essays:

This year's best business books help us understand current conditions and chart a secure course forward. With luck, next year's best books will offer similar insight into a recovery of historic proportions.

You can read the full feature here. We've been following this list since 2003. The previous years' lists are below. 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008