Books

A list of most of the books on my bookshelves, with thumbnail sketches to be added over time.

Anderson, Chris. Free: the future of a radical price. Exploring the strategy of giving things away for free, which is so important to the “abundance economy” of the Internet. If you’ve ever wondered how you can make a profit giving stuff away, or what value there might be in a free product, this book will answer the question. Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired magazine.

Ashkenas. The boundaryless organization.

Axelrod, Robert & Cohen, Michael. Harnessing complexity.

Axelrod, Robert. The evolution of cooperation.

Barna, George. Generation Next.

Barron-Tieger, Barbara. Do what you are: discover the perfect career for you through the secrets of personality type. An excellent look at Myers-Briggs personality types. Looks at each four-letter code, does a few profiles of people in each code, and explains why they love their jobs. Useful for helping you learn the codes and to understand people.

Bennis, Warren. Organizing genius.

Berkun, Scott. Making things happen: mastering project management.

Berkun, Scott. The myths of innovation. This is probably one of the most insightful books I’ve ever read on the process of innovation and how you can encourage environments in which innovation flourishes. Berkun is a former product manager at Microsoft. I use this as a resource in my swarming seminars.

Berst, Jesse. The magnet effect.

Beyerlein, Michael. Beyond teams.

Blumhofer, Edith. Her heart can see: the life and hymns of Fanny J. Crosby.

Boorstin, Daniel. The creators.

Boorstin, Daniel. The discoverers.

Brafman, Ori & Beckstrom, Rod. The Starfish & The Spider: the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations. Good, popularly-written introduction to the subject of decentralized organizations. It’s a book nearly everyone’s familiar with. There are many other books that have far more insights into how swarms work, but this is a good place to start.

Buderi, Robert. Engines of tomorrow.

Burke & Morrison. Business at the speed of stupid.

Burlingham, Bo. Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big. About organizations that choose quality over quantity, independence over wealth, and passionate purpose over mindless growth. Implications for agencies trying to decide whether to be small and focused or big and global. Also, implications for swarming: is it better to be a small swarm or a big collection of small swarms?

Butler, Phil. Well Connected.

Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish saved civilization. A colorful, wonderful story of the growth of the church in early Ireland, its missionary character, and its role in preserving the books of the ancient civilizations. Also, it contains a great description of the "swarming" character of the early missions, so it serves as a perfect case study of missionary swarming.

Carter, Richard. In search of the lost: the death and life of seven peacemakers of the Melanesian Brotherhood.

Chacour, Elias. Blood brothers.

Chandler, Russell. Doomsday. This is an old book, written back close to the turn of the millennium, but it really opened my eyes to the huge number of people who think the world will end, and gave me a good mindset against apocalyptic views.

Chandler, Russell. Racing toward 2001. An old general introduction to various themes that the author felt would dominate the 21st century. I haven’t reviewed this in a while. I recall it was a good read at the time.

Cialdini, Robert. Influence.

Cormack, Don. Killing fields, living fields. A missionary classic: the story of Cambodia.

Covey, Stephen. The 7 habits of highly effective people. The classic. If you haven’t read this, then you probably should. Excellent personal management stuff that keeps you from going insane.

Covey, Stephen. The 8th Habit. About leadership and influence. A good read. Very practical steps to spreading your vision and voice.

Crutchfield, Leslie. Forces for good: the six practices of high-impact nonprofits.

Dan, Ariely. Predictably irrational.

Dawson, Christian. Religion & the rise of Western culture.

Deng, Benson, et al. They poured fire on us from the sky.

Dupuy, Trevor. Future Wars.

Erb, Frank. The development of the young people’s movement: Christian Endeavor. A detailed and insightful look at how this movement developed and sustained itself when the SVM failed.

Farson, Richard & Keyes, Ralph. Whoever makes the most mistakes wins: the paradox of innovation.

Ferguson. Backgrounds of early Christianity.

Fernea, Elizabeth. Guests of the Sheik: an ethnography of an Iraqi village. This was a great book more for some background on how ethnography is done than for its portrait of an Iraqi village (at least for me). The portrait is excellent but I was really fascinated by how ethnography is done.

Fletcher, Richard. The Barbarian Conversion: from paganism to Christianity.

Frank, Thomas. One market under God.

Freedman, David. Corps Business. I was fascinated to learn so much about the Marine Corps and how swarmish it really was. If I had read this book when I was a lot younger, I might have been tempted to join the Marines. (Although anyone looking at me would know I probably wouldn’t have cut it.) He tries to apply it to business practices and I think a lot is lost in translation, but as an examination of the Marines themselves I haven’t found anything better.

Friedman, Thomas. From Beirut to Jerusalem.

Galbraith, John. The age of uncertainty.

Gardner, Austin. The deputation manual for missionaries.

Gardner, Howard. Five minds for the future. This is an interesting book although one needs to keep in mind that the author is a staunch evolutionist. The five minds are the disciplined mind (that has learned a craft), the synthesizing mind (that can take what others have written and put it together), the creating mind (that can create something new), the respectful mind (team player, toleration) and the ethical mind (fulfilling responsibilities). I haven’t read it the whole way through but there’s some interesting takeaways here.

Gerber, Michael. The E-myth revisited.

Gilbert, Daniel. Stumbling on happiness. Very readable book about our often inability to judge what will really make us happy.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: the story of success. What does it take to succeed? Its not what you think. Success isn’t because we’re gifted, necessarily, but because of the work we put into something. The bits about 10,000 hours alone are worth the price of the book.

Gladwell, Malcolm. The tipping point. The seminal book about ideas that go viral, and how it happens.

Godin, Seth. Permission marketing.

Godin, Seth. Purple cow.

Godin, Seth. Survival is not enough.

Godin, Seth. Tribes. Another good little introduction to the idea of decentralized organizations. As usual Seth is far more inspirational than practical. But if you want to get hyped up or learn why swarms are important, this is a good start. Read this after Starfish & the Spider.

Godin, Seth. Unleashing the ideavirus. Another book about viral ideas. One of the earlier books, and gives good prescriptive thoughts on how to do it.

Goldstein, Noah. Yes! 50 scientifically proven ways to be persuasive. An short but useful little book: 50 chapters, each with a case study and a lesson that can be drawn from it. Very practical.

Goman, Carol. The nonverbal advantage. How to read peoples’ body language. If you’ve seen the television show Lie to Me, this book will teach you many of the principles.

Grun. Timetables of history.

Hagel & Armstrong. Net gain.

Hagel & Singer. Net worth.

Harris, Alex. Do hard things: a teenage rebellion against low expectations.

Heath, Dan. Made to stick. Yet another book about viral ideas: this one builds off Gladwell’s Tipping Point and examines what it takes to make ideas ‘sticky.’

Heer, Friedrich. The medieval world.

Hitt, Russell. Cannibal Valley.

Hogan, Brian. There’s a sheep in my bathtub. The church in Mongolia.

Hollister, Mary. Lady fourth daughter of China.

Hourani, Albert. A history of the Arab peoples.

Howe, Jeff. Crowdsourcing: why the power of the crowd is driving the future of business. Crowdsourcing is a key part of swarming: it’s getting the crowd to build things for you. Howe has written a definitive book on how crowdsourcing works. An easy, thoughtful read.

Hunter, George. The Celtic way of evangelism. Examines in detail the model of the Celtic monasteries and how they rapidly multiplied all over the place. A swarmish case study.

Hutchinson, William. Errand to the world.

Isichi, Elizabeth. A history of Christianity in Africa.

Jenkins, Philip. The lost history of Christianity. We always think of Christianity as something that was born in Israel and migrated northwest to its final bastion home in Europe before leaping to America and exploding thence to the world. Not so. Jenkins recounts how Christianity in Asia was once far greater than Christianity anywhere else, and calls this forgotten part of our heritage to mind.

Jenkins, Phillip. The next Christendom.

Johnson, Paul. A history of the Jews.

Johnson, Steven. Emergence.

Katzenbach & Smith. The wisdom of teams.

Kawasaki, Guy. The art of the start.

Kelly, Kevin. New Rules for the New Economy. This is an “oldie-but-goodie.” Many people have thought that it was discredited by the dot-bomb implosion of the economy, but this is hardly the case. This was a landmark book that set the foundation for how to operate in an abundance rather than a scarcity mentality. Less well known is that Kelly is a Christian: he epitomizes my kind of “thinking Christian.”

Kennedy, Paul. Preparing for the 21st century.

Kennedy, Paul. The rise and fall of the great powers.

Kenney, Martin. Biotechnology: the university-industrial complex.

Keys, David. Catastrophe. This is the story of the explosion of Krakatoa, the falling temperature of the earth, the movement of plague-bearing rats, and the Plague that decimated one-fourth of Europe before the rise of Islam and the explosive outward growth of the Mongol Empire, the largest empire to ever rule. A wonderful read.

Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A history of Christianity: volume I.

Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A history of Christianity: volume II.

Levitt & Dubner. Freakonomics. This book is interesting not just because of its controversial subjects and conclusions, but the incredible way that they dive into the data and find the connected bits.

Lomborg, Bjorn. Global crises, Global solutions. An incredibly thick book that details a cost-analysis approach to addressing the major problems of the world. Seems incredibly cold and yet it is an interesting approach. In effect asks, not which problems are the most pressing, but which problems could we do the most about given a certain budget.

Margonelli, Lisa. Oil on the brain. An ethnography of the oil business, from the gas station on the corner lot all the way to the oil distributors. Very interesting examination of something that impacts all of us.

Marshall. Their blood cries out. One of the early books on the persecution of Christians, back when people thought the fact that there were more martyrs in the 20th century than all previous centuries combined was a bad thing. (It’s not–it’s just that there are more Christians now. The % rate is actually very low.)

Matthews, Ryan & Wacker, Watts. The Deviant’s Advantage: how fringe ideas create mass markets.

Maxwell, John. The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. The classic.

May, Matthew. The elegant solution: Toyota’s formula for mastering innovation.

May, Timothy. The Mongol art of war. An insightful examination of the Mongol armies, how they were recruited, trained, organized, and equipped, and the strategies and tactics they used to create the largest empire in history. Has deep implications for the organization of missionary structures and is a foundational case study of swarming.

McCullough, David. John Adams. One of the best biographies it has yet been my pleasure to read.

McKay, et al. A history of world societies.

McRae, Thomas. The world in 2020.

Mcinerny, D. Q. Being logical. Want to think better? Have sounder reasoning? This is the book for you. Short, simple, and explains the rules of logic.

Meroff, Deborah. True Grit: women taking on the world for God’s sake.

Merriam & Makower. Trend watching.

Moffett, Samuel Hugh. A history of Christianity in Asia. This is another book about the “lost Christianity in Asia.” This is probably the most complete book, although perhaps not as easy a read as Jenkins’.

Moore, Steve. While you were micro-sleeping. Moore is the Executive Director of The Mission Exchange, and this short (almost phamplet-style) book is an easy-yet-challenging read on the complex trends affecting the future of missions.

Mosher. Broken Earth: the rural Chinese.

Negroponte, Nicholas. Being digital.

Neill, Stephen. A history of Christian missions.

Nielsen, Jakob. Designing web usability. I pretty much try to live by Nielsen’s rules. These two books are incredibly useful for web designers.

Nielsen, Jakob. Homepage usability. I pretty much try to live by Nielsen’s rules. These two books are incredibly useful for web designers.

Noll, Mark. A history of Christianity in the United States and Canada.

Ortberg, Nancy. Unleashing the power of rubber bands.

Ostrov,Victor. By way of deception. An examination of the Israeli Mossad’s methods. A swarmish intelligence agency. Be forewarned: this book recounts its examination in graphic detail.

Owen, Harrison. Open Space Technology. A very interesting conference meeting method. Useful for swarms.

Pascale, Richard. Surfing the edge of chaos.

Patterson, Kerry, et al. Influencer. This is a good book with some fairly solid tools for becoming an influencer of others. It unfortunately refers too often to “influence geniuses” and “influence masters” – it almost could be given a “sucking up” label. Nevertheless the case studies are very good and the tools are uesful.

Paulos, John. A mathematician reads the newspaper.

Penenberg, Adam. Viral loop.

Penn, Mark. Microtrends: the small forces behind tomorrow’s big changes. Examines the power and influence of very small trends. Fascinating as much for the colorful descriptions and the varied nature of the trends as it is for the implications of these trends. Unfortunately covers only US trends, but does touch on things happening worldwide. Implications for missions in the sense that very small numbers of people can influence people movements. Looks primarily at sociopolitical trends within cultures.

Peters, Tom. Liberation management.

Peters, Tom. The Tom Peters Seminar: crazy times call for crazy organizations.

Peters, Tom. Thriving on chaos.

Pink, Daniel. Free agent nation.

Plueddeman, James. Leading across cultures: effective ministry and mission in the global church.

Pollock, John. A foreign devil in China.

Ressa, Maria. Seeds of terror.

Richardson, Don. Peace child.

Rifkin, Jeremy. The European Dream.

Rifkin, Jeremy. The biotech century.

Rifkin, Jeremy. The end of work.

Roam, Dan. The back of the napkin. Use pictures to solve problems. Roam gives you the tools, and it doesn’t matter if you are an artist or not. If you can draw some basic shapes – circles, squares, triangles – then you can use the tools in this book.

Roam, Dan. Unfolding the napkin. Roam goes into even more detail on how to use the tools, with case studies and plenty of things to try out.

Romanowski, Michael. Teaching in a distant classroom.

Rosen, William. Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe. A fascinating and chilling account of the factors that resulted in the destruction of the ancient world and the birth of modern Europe, centered foremost on the far-reaching effects of plague but also including effects of religion and politics. Perhaps one of the best examinations of the issue, based on a huge number of source documents. Led me directly to the story of the Celts and the refarming of Europe after the plague & the Krakatoa-caused “Dark Ages.”

Sachs, Jeffrey. The end of poverty.

Scott, David Meerman. World wide rave.

Sculley. B2B Exchanges.

Shirky, Clay. Here comes everybody.

Sine. Mustard seed vs. Mcworld.

Spector. Amazon.com.

Spence. God’s Chinese Son: the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan.

Spence. The search for modern China.

Stacey, Ralph. Managing the unknowable.

Stafford. Too small to ignore: why children are the next big thing.

Stanley, Thomas. The millionaire mind.

Stark, Rodney & Finke, Roger. The churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and losers in our religious economy. Explores competition amongst denominations and why it has given birth to one of the most vibrant, thriving religious systems in the world – and why the European parish model doesn’t do the same thing.

Stark, Rodney. Cities of God. Explores the growth of Christianity in cities in the Early Church, and explodes a lot of myths and misconceptions about the early church.

Stark, Rodney. For the glory of God.

Stark, Rodney. The rise of Christianity.

Statterson, Jack. The 100 best Business Books of all time. Features brief synopses of 100 “best business books.” I like their choices and the brief reviews are useful. They don’t tell you all the concepts in the book but enough for you to decide whether to get it or not. I’ve already identified several books that I’d like to read “next.”

Stearns, Peter. The Encyclopedia of World History. This is a fantastic resource. It gives bullet-point entries about the shaping events in world history, covering every region and major time periods. The included CDROM makes it even more valuable. It is very helpful for giving grand overviews and helping a person situate an event in time.

Strauss & Howe. 13th Gen. I was stunned when I read this and they got my generation (GenX) right. Puts it in the context of their model of four recurring generational archetypes. Helped me really understand generational interdynamics.

Strauss & Howe. The Fourth Turning. They call this “An American Prophecy” and so far it seems to me to be proved right. Great reading. Tracks the “turnings” and “generations” in America from its founding to today. Check out http://www.thefourthturning.com for a quick overview.

Strong, Roy. The story of Britain.

Surowiecki, James. The wisdom of crowds. Can a crowd of people govern a swarm without a hierarchy? This book shows you how. A swarm reference.

Surratt, Geoff. Ten stupid things that keep chruches from growing.

Tapscott, Don & Williams, Anthony. Wikinomics. Explores the principles driving Wikipedia and its success. A good case study of a swarm.

Tapscott, Don. Grown up digital. I didn’t find this book useful much at all and don’t recommend it. Unfortunate. The author took a really snobbish tone with his readers.

Thaler, Richard. Nudge: improving decision-making.

Wacker, Watts & Taylor, Jim. The visionary’s handbook.

Waldrop, M. Mitchell. Complexity.

Walls. The missionary movement in Christian history.

Weatherford, Jack. Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world. Explores the incredible world of Genghis Khan, which we only recently have begun to understand. Much of the history of the Mongol empire has been suppressed by a Europe that had been scared out of its wits.

Webber, Malcolm. Building Leaders: SpiritBuilt Leadership 4.

Webber, Malcolm. Healthy Leaders: SpiritBuilt Leadership 2.

Wells, Amos. Christian Endeavor Essentials. Another book on how the CE movement grew. This one gives basic steps.

Williams. Chronology of the expanding world: 1492-1762.

Williams. Chronology of the modern world: 1763-present.

Williamson, Marianne. Imagine.

Winter, Ralph. The 25 Unbelievable years.

Wright, Robert. Nonzero: the logic of human destiny. This is a thick academic book but a very interesting read on the idea of zero-sum games (such as chess) and non-zero-sum games (where everyone can win).

Yergin, Daniel. Russia 2010.

Yergin, Daniel. The commanding heights.

Zuniga, Markos Moulitsas. Taking on the system.

___. God’s smuggler.

___. Nomads of the world.

___. The Community of the Future.

___. The Leader of the Future.

___. The Organization of the Future.

___. Vanishing peoples of the earth.

___. Visualized church history.