Reading Is Radical: Reimagining What Counts As A Business Book
Reading is a vital part of leadership, business development, and one of the most powerful habits an entrepreneur can build.
Its benefits are far-reaching. From expanding our intelligence and empathy to deepening our understanding of history, culture, and power. Reading, especially when intentional, is an act of liberation and resistance.
But what we read—and who we read—matters.
In the business world, most of the so-called foundational texts are written by and for cishet white men. These books often reflect a narrow, harmful lens of success rooted in exploitation, individualism, and erasure.
We can do better.
We can read books that tell the real story of business in America. Books that name slavery as foundational to capitalism. Books by women of color, queer and trans authors, and those writing about relationships, care, and collective thriving because business is ultimately about relationships.
We can expand our definition of what a “business book” is to include works that are holistic, justice-oriented, and aligned with the world we actually want to build.
Here are 5 books you may not think of as business books—but absolutely are:
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
Turn This World Inside Out: The Emergence of Nurturance Culture
Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation
The Power Manual: How to Master Complex Power Dynamics
“Reading is an act of civilization; it’s one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.” — Ben Okri
Reading keeps us rooted. It keeps us expanding. And when we engage with the voices and visions of those reimagining the world, we’re not just learning how to be in business—we’re learning how to be human.
Let’s dive in.
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making Of American Capitalism
by Edward E. Baptist
Why This Book: Listen, we can’t be in business without deeply understanding slavery in America. The mechanism of slavery and the bodies of those enslaved, built the wealth of this country and the biggest businesses as well. In essence, we have to know where we have been to know where we are going so that we don’t recreate the ills of the past.
My Favorite Quote: “While enslaved people with almost nothing to divide were finding ways to make their mite into a basis for sharing, the first waves of slavery’s expansion were creating tremendous gains for white Americans. The surge after 1815 was particularly lucrative. Many of the new dollars suddenly circulating through the US economy had been generated by the toil of people who had been commodified as hands and then put into the whipping-machine.”
From The Publisher: “Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution -- the nation's original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America's later success. But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian Edward E. Baptist reveals in the prizewinning The Half Has Never Been Told, the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American independence drove the evolution and modernization of the United States. In the span of a single lifetime, the South grew from a narrow coastal strip of worn-out tobacco plantations to a continental cotton empire, and the United States grew into a modern, industrial, and capitalist economy.”
Why This Book: Angela Davis is a icon in the activist space. She is a pivotal voice to the history of Black womanhood and the overall history of America. This book explores how to really create movements and what can be learned from Ferguson and Palestine. As a business book, this book is an important look at what true leadership looks like inside the various systems of oppression.
My Favorite Quote: “I think that movements, feminist movements, other movements are most powerful when they begin to affect the vision and perspectives of those who do not necessarily associate themselves with those movements.”
From The Publisher: “Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.”
Turn This World Inside Out: The Emergence of Nurturance Culture
by Nora Samaran
Why This Book: Traditional business is hyper-individualist and isn’t really about the care of the collective. Business that is built for the new world and business that is done differently deeply cares about how to nurture and be with each other. This book explores just that.
My Favorite Quote: “You may shame others for expressing healthy connection needs that you have disconnected from within yourself.”
From The Publisher: “When communities identify and interrupt systemic violence, prioritize the needs of those harmed, and hold a circle of belonging that humanizes everyone, they create a foundation that can begin to resist and repair the harms inflicted by patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism. Emerging from insights in gender studies, race theory, and psychology, and influenced by contemporary social movements, Turn This World Inside Out engages today's crucial questions, helping move us beyond seemingly intractable barriers to collective change.”
Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation
by Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, with Jasmine Syedullah, phD
Why This Book: This is a beautiful book exploring personal and collective liberation. Both are necessary in a world that includes more instead of less. In a business context, being able to understand spirituality inside of liberation and justice enables us to do work that deeply changes the world for more people than just ourselves.
My Favorite Quote: “Predatory capitalist greed has deeply ingrained a self-worth confusion into our psyche. We associate our value as human beings with our financial worth. Our relationships are governed by the shadow game of acquisition. We can never have enough. The result is a devastating disconnect to a felt sense of our experience.”
From The Publisher: “Igniting a long-overdue dialogue about how the legacy of racial injustice and white supremacy plays out in society at large and Buddhist communities in particular, this urgent call to action outlines a new dharma that takes into account the ways that racism and privilege prevent our collective awakening.”
The Power Manual: How To Master Complex Power Dynamics
by Cyndi Suarez
Why This Book: Power dynamics are baked into how we learn and be in business. Typically business has been seen as for men, white men in particular, so if you don’t fit that identity you’re inherently not cared for inside of business. In order to not perpetuate harm to ourselves and others inside of business, it’s important that we understand power dynamics and how they play out within our collective culture.
My Favorite Quote: “Disrupting relationships of power requires one to redirect one’s life energy away from patterns of domination and toward co-creating new, mutual realities.”
From The Publisher: “All social relations are laden with power. Getting out from under dominant power relations and mastering power dynamics is perhaps the most essential skill for change agents across all sectors seeking to ignite positive change in the world. This concise action manual explores major concepts of power, with a focus on the dynamics of domination and liberation, and presents methods for shifting power relations and enacting freedom.”
What we read matters. Who we read matters.
It’s not enough to chase strategies, tricks, or hacks. If we want our businesses to last and to create real impact for the communities we serve, we have to understand the deeper roots of business itself. That means engaging with the histories, systems, and voices that have long been excluded from the mainstream narrative.
I hope you pick up one of these books and let it shift how you think about business and what’s possible through it.
