This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee

The inventor of the World Wide Web tells the story of his visionary invention, the decision to give it away for free, and how it unleashed a commercial race that today imperils democracies and polarizes public debate: a gripping memoir that is also a hopeful manifesto for advancing humanity’s future.

The acclaimed financial historian turns to AI, drawing on unprecedented access to Demis Hassabis to tell the definitive inside story of DeepMind’s race toward superintelligence: a gripping account of a brilliant mind and a reckoning with the technology reshaping our world.

Twenty years on from his landmark Stern Review, the LSE economist and former World Bank and EBRD chief economist draws on economics, finance, policy, politics and behavioural science to demonstrate how we can unlock a new era of growth that is sustainable, resilient and inclusive.

Gul journeys the world exploring hotspots of technological innovation and gathering insights on how innovation works in the newer ecosystems challenging Silicon Valley’s dominance; winner of the FT/McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize.

Arctic Passages: Ice, Exploration and the Battle for Power at the Top of the World by Kieran Mulvaney

Environmental journalist Mulvaney traces how melting sea ice is turning centuries-old fantasies of a navigable Arctic into a live geopolitical contest among the US, Russia, China and Canada, in a timely read at the intersection of trade routes, climate, and great-power rivalry.

In this short, lyrical account, acclaimed journalist Subramanian travels from Pacific islands to secretive cable-laying ships to survey the undersea infrastructure and those who look after it, revealing tensions, risks, and quiet heroics, and exposing just how vulnerable our connected lives really are.

Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? by Graham Allison

The recent allusion to the ‘Thucydides trap’ by Xi Jinping on meeting Donald Trump prompted us to revisit the original reference, by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison. His study of how rising and ruling powers have historically collided, and how often that collision has ended in war, remains sharply resonant today.

From the New York Times journalist and author of Too Big to Fail, an immersive and gripping history of the original Wall Street collapse, taking us inside the chaos of the crash and the raging battle between Wall Street and Washington and larger than life characters in an account that echoes as a warning for today.

The BBC’s chief international correspondent, reporting from Afghanistan since 1988, tells the extraordinary story of the Inter-Continental Kabul and its staff across five decades of coups, war and occupation. Slightly left field on our list, but an original lens on the country’s history that is definitely worth a read.

A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan

The bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind turns his curiosity to the nature of consciousness, bringing together scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic perspectives to explore the essence of our humanity.

Cultural historian Jenkins traces the changing boundaries between public and private life, from ancient Athens to the surveillance and ‘tell-all’ culture of today: a sweeping and provocative intellectual history of this increasingly urgent subject.

The London Business School economist and co-author with Lynda Gratton of bestseller The 100-Year Life provides an inspiring blueprint for society and individuals to change how we age, seizing the opportunity of a longer, happier, healthier and wealthier future together.