FT and McKinsey announce the shortlist for the 2021 Business Book of the Year Award
Books about confronting racism, tackling climate change, and the cyber-weapons arms race are among the shortlisted nominees for this year’s Financial Times and McKinsey & Company 2021 Business Book of the Year Award.
Now in their 17th year, the awards have been called an “essential calendar fixture for authors, publishers and the global business community”, and set out to highlight those works which provide the “most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues”.
Nine distinguished judges, including Mimi Alemayehou of Mastercard, James Kondo from the International House of Japan and Shriti Vadera, of the Prudential, selected this year’s crop from a longlist of 15. They include:
The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources, by Javier Blas & Jack Farchy, in which two leading journalists “lift the lid on one of the least scrutinised corners of the economy: the workings of the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard and sell the earth's resources.”
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, by Patrick Radden Keefe, described as a “masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing.”
The Conversation: How Talking Honestly About Racism Can Transform Individuals and Organizations by Robert Livingston, which “provides a compass for all those seeking to begin the work of anti-racism.”
The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet, by Michael E. Mann, in which the “renowned climate scientist shows how fossil fuel companies have waged a thirty-year campaign to deflect blame and responsibility and delay action on climate change, and offers a battle plan for how we can save the planet.”
This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race, by Nicole Perlroth, which has been called “an astonishing feat of journalism.”
And The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World, by Adrian Wooldridge, in which the author calls for the renewal of Meritocracy.
Said Financial Times editor and judging panel chair, Roula Khalaf, “We had a fabulous longlist of compelling, deeply researched books to choose from this year… this excellent shortlist tackles many of the pressing issues facing business today, including climate change, cybersecurity, and racial discrimination.”
Added Virginia Simmons, Managing Partner - UK, Ireland & Israel, McKinsey & Company, “While the continuing impact of the pandemic is reflected in the books that made the list, the breadth and richness of topics here underscores the forward-looking value of this annual book award. These authors provide compelling and engaging insights into modern business, climate change conversations and our sustainable and inclusive future.”
The winner, who will receive £30,000, is to be announced on 1 December at an event co-hosted by Khalaf and Magnus Tyreman, Managing Partner Europe, McKinsey & Company. The other shortlisted will also be awarded £10,000. Previous Business Book of the Year winners have included Caroline Criado Perez for Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2019), and the prize’s inaugural winner in 2005 was Thomas Friedman, for The World is Flat.