Citizens by Jon Alexander on McKinsey summer reading list
Posted on August 10 2022
Wednesday 10th August 2022
A guide to active citizenship from a small press in Surrey, Canbury, has joined big publisher titles on the reading list of the McKinsey global management consultancy.
CITIZENS by John Alexander is one of the top five recommended books for summer 2022 alongside three Penguin Random House titles: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates, Leadership by Henry Kissinger and Think Again by Adam Grant; and Liberalism and its Discontents by Francis Fukuyama, published by Profile.
Sales of Citizens have increased since the announcement this week of the list, which is distributed to McKinsey’s 30,000 partners and employees worldwide.
Subtitled Why the Key to Fixing Everything Is All of Us, the book’s foreword is by the music producer Brian Eno.
Martin Hickman, Canbury’s MD, said: ‘This is quite a moment for the author, Jon Alexander. He wants to spread his idea about how more active citizens can transform government, businesses and charities, helping organisations to solve big issues while also making us happier and more engaged as individuals.”
The book argues that the crux to creating a better society is for individuals to behave as citizens rather than as consumers. It features case studies of active citizenship from across the globe, from the back streets of Birmingham to the slums of Kenya, taking in several well-known British brands including the National Trust, the Guardian, the Co-op and BrewDog.
Recommending Citizens, Lisa Witter, CEO of the Apolitical Foundation, wrote on the McKinsey list: “The headlines of our times are enough to make anyone feel helpless. But when we start to think and act like ‘citizens,’ not ‘consumers’, everything changes. I don’t know about you, but I need some new stories to tell and a shot of practical inspiration.”
McKinsey summer 2020 reading list: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/summer-reading-2022
BIBLIO INFO
ISBN: 9781912454846 (print hardback)
9781912454853 (ebook)
TITLE: CITIZENS
SUBTITLE: Why the Key to Fixing
Everything is All of Us
AUTHOR: Jon Alexander
PUB DATE: 17th March 2022
PRICE: £20
EXTENT: 320pp
FORMAT: Royal hardback
(234mm x 143mm)
CATEGORY: Society and Culture BIC
CODE: JF