Year-End Lists

The Economist: The Best Books of 2021

[see also 2024 • 2023 • 2022 • 2012]

Politics and current affairs

• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• Do Not Disturb

  The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad
  Michela Wrong
• Invisible China

  How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise
  Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell
• The Sex Lives of African Women

  Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing
  Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
• Red Roulette

  An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
  Desmond Shum
• How the Word Is Passed

  A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
  Clint Smith
• We Are Bellingcat

  Global Crime, Online Sleuths, and the Bold Future of News
  Eliot Higgins

History

• The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen

  Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World
  Linda Colley
• Tunnel 29

  The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall
  Helena Merriman
• Cuba

  An American History
  Ada Ferrer
• The Greek Revolution

  1821 and the Making of Modern Europe
  Mark Mazower

Biography and memoir

• Fall

  The Mysterious Life and Death of Robert Maxwell, Britain's Most Notorious Media Baron
  John Preston
• The Radical Potter

  The Life and Times of Josiah Wedgwood
  Tristram Hunt
• There Is Nothing for You Here

  Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century
  Fiona Hill
• All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days

  The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler
  Rebecca Donner
• The Last King of America

  The Misunderstood Reign of George III
  Andrew Roberts
• All In
  Billie Jean King

Culture and ideas

• God

  An Anatomy
  Francesca Stavrakopoulou
• The Sinner and the Saint

  Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece
  Kevin Birmingham
• Fallen Idols

  Twelve Statues That Made History
  Alex von Tunzelmann
• Barça

  The inside story of the world's greatest football club
  Simon Kuper
• The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock

  An Anatomy of the Master of Suspense
  Edward White

Fiction

• Mother for Dinner
  Shalom Auslander
• The Books of Jacob
  Olga Tokarczuk
• The Plot
  Jean Hanff Korelitz
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Promise
  Damon Galgut
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth
  Wole Soyinka

Economics and business

• The World For Sale

  Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources
  Javier Blas and Jack Farchy
• Career and Family

  Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity
  Claudia Goldin
• The Future of Money

  How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance
  Eswar S. Prasad
• The Power of Creative Destruction

  Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations
  Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, and Simon Bunel
• The Story of Work

  A New History of Humankind
  Jan Lucassen
• The Key Man

  The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale
  Simon Clark and Will Louch

Science and technology

• A Shot to Save the World

  The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine
  Gregory Zuckerman
• I, Warbot

  The Dawn of Artificially Intelligent Conflict
  Kenneth Payne
• Being You

  A New Science of Consciousness
  Anil Seth
• The Genetic Lottery

  Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
  Kathryn Paige Harden
• Water

  A Biography
  Giulio Boccaletti