Mohammed Barakat

Ben is an ambitious young executive charged with persuading 500 employee shareholders to agree to a merger that will save their company. But despite his best efforts, he can't convince anyone to buy in to the deal. During his week at the company, Ben realises that his aggressive style is actually making it harder to reach his goals. Will Ben find a way to sway the shareholders before the climactic vote? The answer may surprise you, as you follow Ben on his journey to understanding that the path to genuine influence lies less in taking leadership than in giving it.

Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.

Why we think it’s a great listen: You thought he was a stodgy scientist with funny hair, but Isaacson and Hermann reveal an eloquent, intense, and selfless human being who not only shaped science with his theories, but politics and world events in the 20th century as well. Based on the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos.