Anand Giridharadas won the 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year Award for Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (Knopf). The winner was announced at the company's annual industry gathering in New York City, where author Seth Godin was also given the fifth annual Jack Covert Award for Contribution to the Business Book Industry.
"Winners Take All provides the impetus many of us seek when we read: it challenges our biases, it prompts us to ask questions of ourselves and others, it spurs us to consider a subject in a wholly different way," said CEO Rebecca Schwartz. "Such a book can make us uncomfortable but that, at least in part, is its purpose."
Marketing director and juror Blyth Meier added: "During this time of unprecedented inequality, Giridharadas challenges the viewpoint that one can address societal ills while preserving the system that brought them about. If philanthropists really want to address poverty, why do the businesses that made their foundations' fortunes fight against workers rights? If CEOs advocate for stable democracies overseas, why do they avoid the taxes that would strengthen our government at home? If entrepreneurs bill themselves as the ultimate 'changemakers' in our society, why do they claim that fundamental change in our public institutions is impossible? Laying bare the myths and failings of elites across the political spectrum, Winners Take All provides a clarion call to challenge the current power structures and re-engage in the habit of democracy."