SALT Talks Archives

Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic

In Uncontrolled Spread, he shows how the coronavirus and its variants were able to trounce America’s pandemic preparations, and he outlines the steps that must be taken to protect against the next outbreak. As the pandemic unfolded, Gottlieb was in regular contact with all the key players in Congress, the Trump administration, and the drug and diagnostic industries. He provides an inside account of how level after level of American government crumbled as the COVID-19 crisis advanced. […Learn More]

Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere

A Harvard Business School professor and leading expert in virtual and global work provides remote workers and leaders with the best practices necessary to perform at the highest levels in their organizations.

The rapid and unprecedented changes brought on by Covid-19 have accelerated the transition to remote working, requiring the wholesale migration of nearly entire companies to virtual work in just weeks, leaving managers and employees scrambling to adjust. […Learn More]

The Engagement: America’s Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage

On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional, making same-sex unions legal across the United States. But the road to that momentous decision was much longer than many know. In this definitive account, Sasha Issenberg vividly guides us through same-sex marriage’s unexpected path from the unimaginable to the inevitable. […Learn More]

Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever

From the Financial Times’s global finance correspondent, the incredible true story of the iconoclastic geeks who defied conventional wisdom and endured Wall Street’s scorn to launch the index fund revolution, democratizing investing and saving hundreds of billions of dollars in fees that would have otherwise lined fat cats’ pockets.
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Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century

The explosive, behind-the-scenes story of Donald Trump’s high-stakes confrontation with Beijing, from an award-winning Washington Post columnist and peerless observer of the U.S.–China relationship

There was no calm before the storm. Donald Trump’s surprise electoral victory shattered the fragile understanding between Washington and Beijing, putting the most important relationship of the twenty-first century in the hands of a novice who had bitterly attacked China from the campaign trail. […Learn More]

Huddle: How Women Unlock Their Collective Power

CNN news anchor Brooke Baldwin explores the phenomenon of “huddling,” when women lean on one another—in politics, Hollywood, activism, the arts, sports, and everyday friendships—to provide each other support, empowerment, inspiration, and the strength to solve problems or enact meaningful change. Whether they are facing adversity (like workplace inequity or a global pandemic) or organizing to make the world a better place, women are a highly potent resource for one another. […Learn More]

The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power

From the former news policy lead at Google, an urgent and groundbreaking account of the high-stakes global cyberwar brewing between Western democracies and the autocracies of China and Russia that could potentially crush democracy.

From 2016 to 2020, Jacob Helberg led Google’s global internal product policy efforts to combat disinformation and foreign interference. During this time, he found himself in the midst of what can only be described as a quickly escalating two-front technology cold war between democracy and autocracy. […Learn More]

Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy

An insider’s account of how politicians representing a radical white minority of Americans have used “the world’s greatest deliberative body” to hijack our democracy.

Every major decision governing our diverse, majority-female, and increasingly liberal country bears the stamp of the United States Senate, an institution controlled by people who are almost exclusively white, overwhelmingly male, and disproportionately conservative. Although they do not represent a majority of Americans―and will not for the foreseeable future―today’s Republican senators possess the power to block most legislation. Once known as “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” the Senate has become one of the greatest threats to our democracy. How did this happen? [ […Learn More]

Anthro – Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life

In an age when the business world is dominated by technology and data analysis, award-winning financial journalist and anthropology PhD Gillian Tett presents a radically different strategy for success: businesses can revolutionize their understanding of behavior by studying consumers, markets, and organizations through an anthropological lens. […Learn More]

The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes

At the dawn of World War I, a young academic named John Maynard Keynes hastily folded his long legs into the sidecar of his brother-in-law’s motorcycle for an odd, frantic journey that would change the course of history. Swept away from his placid home at Cambridge University by the currents of the conflict, Keynes found himself thrust into the halls of European treasuries to arrange emergency loans and packed off to America to negotiate the terms of economic combat. […Learn More]