Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Announce Shortlist for Business Book of the Year

Judges for the annual event named the following books as the most influential business books of the year:

• "Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty," by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (Crown Business, Profile Books)
• "The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk-taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom and Bust," by John Coates (The Penguin Press, Fourth Estate)
• "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power," by Steve Coll (The Penguin Press, Allen Lane)
• "Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography," by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster; Little, Brown)
• "What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits Of Markets," by Michael J. Sandel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Allen Lane)
• "Volcker: The Triumph of Persistence," by William L. Silber (Bloomsbury Press)

Lionel Barber, editor of the FT and the judging chairman said: "The quality of submissions this year was outstanding, and we therefore have a very powerful shortlist. It has a strong emphasis on leadership and broader institutional and political issues, reflecting the mood of the world today."

Joining Barber on the judges panel are:

• Vindi Banga, Partner, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice
• Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice, London Business School
• Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President of the American Action Forum
• Arthur Levitt, former Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission
• Jorma Ollila,Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell
• Shriti Vadera, Director of Shriti Vadera Ltd, Non-Executive Director of BHP Billiton and AstraZeneca

The winner will be announced at the award dinner on 1st November, co-hosted by Lionel Barber and Lloyd C. Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. at The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York.

The winner of the Business Book of the Year Award 2012will be awarded £30,000, and each of the remaining shortlisted authors will receive £10,000.

Previous winners of the award are: Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo for "Poor Economics," Raghuram Rajan for "Fault Lines," Liaquat Ahamed for "The Lords of Finance," Mohamed El-Erian for "When Markets Collide," William D. Cohan for "The Last Tycoons," James Kynge for "China Shakes the World" and Thomas Friedman, as the inaugural Award winner in 2005, for "The World is Flat."

Congrats to all of those who have made this year's shortlist.

Read More:12 Business Books for 2012

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