How to cure the ills of modern American capitalism is one of the questions addressed by spring business books.

Big Is Beautiful: Debunking the Myth of Small Business

Robert D. Atkinson and Michael Lind. MIT, Feb. 26 (trade paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-262-53710-0)

Atkinson and Lind claim that small business is not the basis of American prosperity. Rather, they argue for a “size neutral” policy approach to encourage growth.

The Billionaire Boondoggle: How Our Politicians Let Corporations and Bigwigs Steal Our Money and Jobs

Pat Garofalo. St. Martin’s/Dunne, Mar. 12 (hardcover, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-16233-5)

Garofalo questions the wisdom that the entertainment industry—including everything from casinos and malls to events such as the Super Bowl—is a prime driver of economic growth. He takes elected officials to task for the vast subsidies offered to “Big Entertainment.”

The Enlightened Capitalists: Cautionary Tales of Business Pioneers Who Tried to Do Well by Doing Good

James O’Toole. HarperBusiness, Feb. 26 (hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-06-288024-6)

O’Toole recounts the stories of men and women who adopted business practices designed to serve the needs of shareholders as well as employees, customers, and the environment.

Fiscal Therapy: Curing America’s Debt Addiction and Investing in the Future

William G Gale. Oxford Univ., Apr. 1 (hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-19-064541-0)

Gale, a senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, weighs the challenges posed by the imbalances between government spending and revenue, and proposes a plan that balances current needs and what will be required in the future.

IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon

James W. Cortada. MIT, Mar. 5 (hardcover, $45, ISBN 978-0-262-03944-4)

Cortada, a former IBM employee, traces the history of the company, which at one point was the representative technology company in America.

Invest for Good: Increasing Your Personal Well-Being While Changing the World

Mark Mobius, Carlos Von Hardenberg, and Greg Konieczny. Bloomsbury Business, May 7 (hardcover, $23, ISBN 978-1-4729-6265-2)

The authors, all of asset management firm Mobius Capital Partners, offer strategies aimed at those who are interested in investing their money profitably while doing good.

Merchants of Truth: The Business of Facts and the Future of News

Jill Abramson. Simon & Schuster, Feb. 5 (hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-1-5011-2320-7)

Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times, follows two legacy media companies (the New York Times and Washington Post) and two upstarts (BuzzFeed and Vice) as they face the digital revolution.

Priced Out

Uwe E. Reinhardt. Princeton Univ., May 14 (hardcover, $27.95, ISBN 978-0-691-19217-8)

Reinhardt, a professor of political economy at Princeton, explains why the American health care system costs so much more and delivers so much less than that of every other advanced country, and he offers suggestions on how to improve it.

The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind

Raghuram Rajan. Penguin Press, Feb. 26 (hardcover, $30, ISBN 978-0-525-55831-6)

Rajan, a University of Chicago finance professor and former IMF chief economist, offers an account of the current populist backlash against globalization.

Whistleblowing: Toward a New Theory

Kate Kenny. Harvard Univ., Apr. 1 (hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-0-674-97579-8)

Business professor Kenny focuses on scandals in the financial industry in this study of whistleblowing across the world, and she suggests ways to make it less perilous to hold the powerful to account.

Business & Economics Listings

Avery

Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need by Grant Sabatier (Feb. 5, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-0-525-54088-5). Sabatier, dubbed the Millennial Millionaire by CNBC, challenges the conventional wisdom about earning and saving money and provides a step-by-step path to make more money in less time.

Ballantine

Work Wife: The Power of Female Friendship to Drive Successful Businesses by Erica Cerulo and Clair Mazur (Mar. 5, hardcover, $24, ISBN 978-1-5247-9677-8). Founders of the fashion and design website Of a Kind, Cerulo and Mazur bring to light the power of female friendship to fuel successful businesses.

Berrett-Koehler

Dig Your Heels in: Navigate Corporate BS and Build the Company You Deserve by Joan Kuhl (Apr. 16, trade paper, $18.95, ISBN 978-1-5230-9835-4) provides a road map for women to increase their breadth of experience and give them more power to identify opportunities to bring about change.

From Sabotage to Support: A New Vision for Feminist Solidarity in the Workplace by Joy L. Wiggins and Kami J. Anderson (May 14, trade paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-5230-9847-7) teaches a method for overcoming divisions between white women and women of color that are rooted in history by better understanding biases.

Black Cat

Totally Wired: The Rise and Fall of Josh Harris and the Great Dotcom Swindle by Andrew Smith (Feb. 12, trade paper, $17, ISBN 978-0-8021-2934-5). Journalist Smith’s analysis of the late 1990s dot-com bubble centers on internet entrepreneur Josh Harris, who saw his personal fortune dwindle from $85 million to nothing in the space of a week.

Bloomsbury Business

Creating Value Through Technology: Understanding the Right Tech for Your Business Goals by Andrew Hampshire (July 30, hardcover, $35, ISBN 978-1-4729-6204-1) guides leaders to understand the role that different technologies play in creating value in their businesses, in part by demystifying technology jargon and acronyms, and debunking misconceptions.

Nicholas Brealey

How to Get to Great Ideas: A System for Smart, Extraordinary Thinking by Dave Birss (Apr. 2, hardcover, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-4736-9214-5). The former creative director of OgilvyOne offers a new system for conceiving original and valuable ideas.

Career

Turn Enemies into Allies: The Art of Peace in the Workplace (Conflict Resolution for Leaders, Managers, and Anyone Stuck in the Middle) by Judy Ringer (May 1, trade paper, $16.95, ISBN 978-1-63265-154-9) provides a way of working with clashing employees that is deliberate and systematic, informed by the author’s expertise in conflict and communication-skills building and a decades-long practice in mind-body principles.

Chronicle

Do Lead: Share Your Vision. Inspire Your Team. Achieve the Impossible by Les McKeown (Feb. 26, trade paper, $14.95, ISBN 978-1-4521-7496-9) draws on the author’s decades of experience as a CEO and leadership consultant to deliver, to those dreaming of starting their own business, advice on what it takes to be a visionary leader.

Currency

Financially Forward: How to Optimize Your Digital Wallet by Alexa Von Tobel (May 14, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-1-984823-52-6). The chief digital officer at Northwestern Mutual and founder/CEO of LearnVest shows how Americans can use the tools of the digital age, ranging from mobile devices to cryptocurrencies, to get more out of their money.

Dey Street

Agent of Influence: How to Use Spy Skills to Persuade Anyone, Sell Anything, and Build a Successful Business by Jason Hanson (May 21, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-06-289274-4). A former CIA special agent and founder of Spy Escape School reveals how spy tactics can improve the likelihood of success, such as by strategically planning one’s day and mastering the steps toward setting achievable goals.

Gallery

Blockchain for Everyone: Unlock the Secrets of the New Millionaire Class by John Hargrave (July 16, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-982113-54-4). The author of Mind Hacking and founder of Bitcoin Market Journal reveals his formula for investing in Bitcoin and blockchain, using real-life stories and humor.

The Most Powerful Woman in the Room Is You: Command an Audience and Sell Your Way to Success by Lydia Fenet (Apr. 9, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-982101-13-8). Senior v-p of Christie’s and a seasoned auctioneer, Fenet shares the secrets of success and the strategies behind her sales approach to show how to channel one’s own power in any room.

Grand Central

Backroads Boss Lady: Building a Million-Dollar Business by Getting Real with Myself and My Community by Jessi Roberts, with Bret Witter (Mar. 5, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-5387-4573-1). Roberts reveals how she turned Cheekys, her small town shop in Idaho, into a national clothing and fashion accessories brand with annual revenues of more than $6 million.

Hachette

Earn It! Know Your Value and Grow Your Career, in Your 20s and Beyond by Mika Brzezinski (May 7, trade paper, $15.99, ISBN 978-1-60286-591-4). Following up Brzezinski’s Know Your Value, Earn It! is a guide for the newest generation looking to innovate businesses and find meaning in the workplace.

Work Optional: The Non-Penny-Pinching Guide to Retiring Early by Tanja Hester (Mar. 26, trade paper, $17.99, ISBN 978-0-316-45089-8) leads readers in crafting their own early retirement plan—enabling them to quit work sooner and live life fully on their terms through a mix of mindful and practical advice.

Harmony

The Having: The Secret Art of Feeling and Growing Rich by Suh Yoon Lee and Jooyun Hong (Feb. 5, hardcover, $18.99, ISBN 978-1-5247-6341-1). Two women who have advised the 1% share a series of life-change lessons about how anyone can apply the true secret of wealth to their lives.

HarperBusiness

The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life by Todd Herman (Feb. 5, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-06-283863-6) Herman reveals the secret behind many top athletes’ and executives’ success: creating a heroic alter ego to activate when the chips are down.

Outspoken: Why Women’s Voices Get Silenced and How to Set Them Free by Veronica Rueckert (July 2, hardcover, $29.99, ISBN 978-0-06-287934-9). Rueckert—a Peabody Award–winning former host at Wisconsin Public Radio and trained opera singer—teaches women to speak with confidence, clarity, and authority.

Turning the Flywheel by Jim Collins (Feb. 26, trade paper, $14.99, ISBN 978-0-06-293379-9). This companion volume to Collins’s Good to Great expands on the flywheel concept introduced in the earlier book to show readers how to build on their early success—slowly gaining momentum and eventually reaching a breakthrough.

Harvard Business Review

Innovation Capital: How to Compete—and Win—Like the World’s Most Innovative Leaders by Jeff Dyer, Nathan Furr, and Curtis Lefrandt (June 4, hardcover, $32, ISBN 978-1-63369-652-5) shares the authors’ research in understanding how people compete for, and obtain, resources to launch innovative new ideas—even, in some cases, before they’ve earned a track record of innovation.

Hay House

Choose: The Single Most Important Decision When Starting Your Business by Ryan Levesque (Mar. 19, hardcover, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-4019-5747-6) provides a three-tiered, step-by-step process for choosing the right market to serve in order to succeed with a new startup business.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Break Through the Noise: The Nine Rules to Capture Global Attention by Tim Staples and Josh Young (July 9, hardcover, $25, ISBN 978-1-328-61856-6). Staples, founder and CEO of Shareability, shows marketers, entrepreneurs, and online celebrity wannabes how they can develop videos that amass millions of views.

Kogan Page

Cracking the Consumer Code: How the Fast Moving Consumer Goods Industry Can Survive and Grow in the Age of Digital Consumerism by John Zealley (May 28, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-7494-9301-1) explores the impact of digital trends and changing buyer behaviors that have shocked the consumer goods industry and provides a solution for companies to create value and growth in changed markets.

MIT

The Technology Fallacy: How People Are the Real Key to Digital Transformation by Gerald C. Kane et al. (Apr. 23, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-262-03968-0) offers managers and business leaders a guide for surviving digital disruptions—but rather than being about technology, it is about the organizational changes required to harness the power of technology.

Morrow

Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate by Rory Sutherland (Mar. 5, hardcover, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-238841-4). The vice chairman of Ogilvy UK and the star of three TED Talks blends the science of human behavior with experience in the art of persuasion to decode successful branding and marketing.

Thomas Nelson

From Monk to Money Manager: Why It’s Okay to Be a Little Bit Wealthy—and How to Make It Happen by Doug Lynam (Mar. 26, trade paper, $16.99, ISBN 978-0-7852-2387-0). A former monk turned financial planner shares 10 foundational rules intended to change readers’ approach to money and saving.

New Society

Grocery Story: The Promise of Food Co-Ops in the Age of Grocery Giants by Jon Steinman (June 18, trade paper, $19.99, ISBN 978-0-86571-907-1) makes a case, through analysis, stories, and examples of American and Canadian food co-ops, for the transformation of the grocery store aisles as the emerging frontier in the local and good food movements.

Oxford Univ.

Spending Time: The Most Valuable Resource by Daniel S. Hamermesh (Mar. 1, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-19-085383-9). Hamermesh explores how people use their time, including across countries, regions, cultures, class, and gender, while providing insights into what determines people’s decisions about spending their time.

Portfolio

Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley by Emily Chang (Mar. 5, trade paper, $16, ISBN 978-0-525-54017-5). A Bloomberg TV journalist, Chang reveals how Silicon Valley got so sexist despite its utopian ideals, why bro culture endures despite decades of companies claiming the moral high ground, and how women are speaking out and fighting back.

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport (Feb. 5, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-525-53651-2). A Georgetown computer scientist proposes a minimalist approach to technology use in which people radically reduce the time they spend online, focusing on a small set of carefully selected activities while ignoring the rest.

Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent by Sydney Finkelstein (Feb. 5, trade paper, $17, ISBN 978-0-525-53732-8). A professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business reveals that while successful bosses differ in personal styles, they all focus on identifying promising newcomers, inspiring their best work, and launching them into highly successful careers—while expanding their own networks and building stronger companies.

Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level by Leander Kahney (Apr. 16, hardcover, $27,

ISBN 978-0-525-53760-1). Drawing on access to several Apple insiders, Kahney narrates how Tim Cook attempted to replace the irreplaceable Steve Jobs, and succeeded.

Princeton Univ.

The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality by Katharina Pistor (May 14, hardcover, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-691-17897-4) explains how capital is created behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, and why this little-known fact is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap.

PublicAffairs

You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When It Matters Most by Leonard Marcus et al. (June 11, hardcover, $28, ISBN 978-1-5417-6803-1). The authors—faculty of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard University—distill extensive research and experience to teach readers how to become better leaders, including tools to handle inevitable crises.

Rowman & Littlefield

Plant Your Money Tree: A Guide to Growing Your Wealth by Michele Schneider (May 8, hardcover, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-5381-2257-0) offers readers a strategic and actionable way to look at their financial life with an attitude of confidence, empowering them to make smart decisions.

Scribner

Blockchain: The Next Everything by Stephen Williams (Mar. 26, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-982116-82-8). Tech writer Williams provides readers with an introduction to blockchain, a new technology critical to cryptocurrency, and imagines how it may influence society and institutions.

Seal

I’m Not Really a Waitress: How One Woman Took Over the Beauty Industry One Color at a Time by Suzi Weiss-Fischmann (Mar. 12, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-58005-819-3) relates how Weiss-Fischmann transformed a small dental supply company into a top global beauty brand.

Simon & Schuster

The Players Ball: A Genius, a Con Man, and the Secret History of the Internet’s Rise by David Kushner (Apr. 9, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-5011-2214-9). Journalist Kushner draws from years of research and interviews to recreate the Wild West atmosphere of the early internet, when innovators and outlaws battled for power and money.

Superpower: The Transformation of American Energy by Russell Gold (June 11, hardcover, $27, ISBN 978-1-5011-6358-6). This story of clean energy focuses on Michael Skelly, an infrastructure builder who began working on wind energy in 2000 and eight years later helped build the second largest wind power company in the U.S.—and sold it for $2 billion.

Simple Truths

Change Is Good... You Go First: 21 Ways to Inspire Change by Tom Feltenstein and Mac Anderson (Feb. 1, hardcover, $16.99, ISBN 978-1-4926-7950-9). Change is inevitable in business, write the authors. Here, they provide tips on how to embrace and foster change, rather than to resist it.

St. Martin’s

Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero by Tyler Cowen (Apr. 9, hardcover, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-11054-1) is a defense of corporations and their role in a balanced, productive, and progressive society.

How to Win in a Winner-Take-All World: Career Management in the Twenty-First Century by Neil Irwin (June 18, hardcover, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-17627-1). The senior economic correspondent at the New York Times delivers a guide to being successful in today’s economy by cultivating the ability to bring multiple specialties together.

St. Martin’s/Dunne

Win or Die: Leadership Secrets from ‘Game of Thrones’ by Bruce Craven (Mar. 19, hardcover, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-250-30117-8) uses characters from the HBO series to illustrate how learning from one’s mistakes can lead to achieving great victories and surprising successes.

Vintage

The Robots Are Coming! The Future of Jobs in the Age of Automation by Andres Oppenheimer, trans. by Ezra E. Fitz (Apr. 30, trade paper, $16.95, ISBN 978-0-525-56500-0) contrasts the perspectives of “techno-optimists” with those of “techno-negativists,” and attempts to find a middle ground between an alarmist vision of the future, and one that is too uncritical.

Yale Univ.

Forecasting: An Essential Introduction by David Hendry, Jennifer Castle, and Michael Clements (June 11, trade paper, $25, ISBN 978-0-300-24466-3). Making accurate predictions about the economy has always been difficult, and this guide provides an overview of the process and problems of forecasting.

This article has been updated with new bibliographic information.