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Rafat Ali

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Rafat Ali. Rafat is the CEO/founder of Skift, an early-stage travel intelligence startup that offers news, data, and and services to the travel industry and business travelers. Previously, he was the founder/CEO of paidContent and ContentNext, which he sold to UK's Guardian News and Media in 2008, and left in 2010.
19 books on the list
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To Kill A Democracy book cover
To Kill A Democracy
India's Passage to Despotism
Debasish Roy Chowdhury, John Keane - 2021-06-24
Goodreads Rating
India is heralded as the world's largest democracy. Yet, in recent years there has been growing alarm about its democratic health. ...
Rafat Ali
2022-09-10T19:56:54.000Z
Definitely amongst the best modern about-the-state-of-India books you will read, brings a lot of coherence, brings receipts and puts lots of numbers into context. “To Kill A Democracy”, by @Planet_Deb      source
Born in Blackness book cover
Born in Blackness
Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War
Howard W. French - 2021-10-12
Goodreads Rating
Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the “New World.” Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread ...
Rafat Ali
2022-04-17T13:58:19.000Z
If there is one history book you read, this by @hofrench should be the one, so detailed, so readable, so sweeping in its scope, is reframing my understanding of world history for sure.      source
Minarets in the Mountains book cover
Minarets in the Mountains
A Journey into Muslim Europe
Tharik Hussain - 2021-08-07
Goodreads Rating
A magical, eye-opening account of a journey into a Europe that rarely makes the news and is in danger of being erased altogether. Another Europe. A Europe few people believe exists and many wish didn't. Muslim Europe. Writer and documentary-maker Tharik Hussain sets off with his wife and young daughters around the Western Balkans, home to the large...
Rafat Ali
2022-01-02T16:21:25.000Z
Update, I finished it, amazing book, more a history (and absence in present day) of the Muslim Europe in the Balkans/Eastern Europe, hugely enjoyed it. Inspired to take my two boys when a bit older on this family journey. Well done @_TharikHussain with this book.      source
The World for Sale book cover
The World for Sale
Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources
Javier Blas, Jack Farchy - 2021-03-01
Goodreads Rating
Meet the traders who supply the world with oil, metal and food - no matter how corrupt, war-torn or famine-stricken the source. 'The definitive, eye-opening story of the most powerful and secretive traders in the world.' Bradley Hope, co-author of Billion Dollar Whale_____The modern world is built on commodities - from the oil that fuels our cars t...
Rafat Ali
2021-12-18T12:43:04.000Z
Hugely enjoying “The World For Sale”, as good a business non-fiction book as it gets, would put it in “Hard Landing” category for those who know that. Great reporting & writing by @JavierBlas & @jfarchy.      source
Also recommended by
Gerald ButtsIan M Calvert
The Secret Life of Groceries book cover
The Secret Life of Groceries
The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket
Benjamin Lorr - 2021-11-09 (first published in 2020)
Goodreads Rating
A deeply curious and evenhanded report on our national appetites. --The New York Times...
Rafat Ali
2021-07-16T00:41:20.000Z
Reading “The Secret Life of Groceries” book, in it chapter on shrimp farming in Thailand, global connections of slavery & how grocery chains absolve responsibility is possibly the best business book chapter I’ve ever read, so complex, so roiling, such great nuanced writing.      source
Bottle of Lies book cover
Bottle of Lies
The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom
Katherine Eban - 2019-05-14
Goodreads Rating
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2019New York Public Library Best Books of 2019 Kirkus Reviews Best Health and Science Books of 2019Science Friday Best Books of 2019 New postscript by the authorFrom an award-winning journalist, an explosive narrative investigation of the generic drug boom that reveals fraud and life-t...
Rafat Ali
2021-03-14T01:36:22.000Z
I loved "Bottle of Lies" book, wanted similar biz investigation books, but Amazon is so useless/overloaded on recommendation now, a joke from collaborative filtering field it pioneered. I was "recommended" 320 books in total in paid & unpaid links.      source
Also recommended by
Salil TripathiR Balakrishnan
An American saga book cover
An American saga
Juan Trippe and his Pan Am empire
Robert Daley - 1980-01-01
Goodreads Rating
This is the story of the man who virtually single-handedly open up the world to commercial flight. Teeming with adventure, international intrigue, and financial manipulations, the book reveals how a sky-struck young man of immense ambition and vision took a single-engined seaplane carrying mail 90 miles from Key West to Havana and expanded the oper...
Rafat Ali
2020-12-13T10:38:23.000Z
In pantheon of airline books, “Hard Landing” deservedly gets top spot, but this long history of Juan Trippe & PanAm deserves as much praise, fascinating early history of commercial aviation & legacy of sea planes (now you know why most older airports are next to water bodies.)      source
Up All Night book cover
Up All Night
Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News
Lisa Napoli - 2020-05-12
Goodreads Rating
The wild inside story of the birth of CNN and dawn of the age of 24-hour news   How did we get from an age of dignified nightly news broadcasts on three national networks to the age of 24-hour channels and constantly breaking news? The answer—thanks to Ted Turner and an oddball cast of cable television visionaries, big league rejects, and nonunion ...
Rafat Ali
2020-10-22T12:48:08.000Z
I don’t have anything interesting left to say on present/future of media, but have lots to learn about history of media to keep sense of wonder alive. Read this book on birth of live TV by @lisanapoli, so fascinating on why we’re where we are in context      source
Secondhand book cover
Secondhand
Travels in the New Global Garage Sale
Adam Minter - 2019-11-12
Goodreads Rating
Downsizing. Decluttering. A parent's death. Sooner or later, all of us are faced with things we no longer need or want. But when we drop our old clothes and other items off at a local donation center, where do they go? Sometimes across the country-or even halfway across the world-to people and places who find value in what we leave behind.In Second...
Rafat Ali
2020-01-09T22:57:20.000Z
Anyone in B2B or business media, want to learn how to make your subject and writing interesting and big picture, read this. Certainly the most interesting book I have read in a while.      source
Also recommended by
Helene Meisler
Range book cover
Range
Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
David Epstein - 2021-04-27 (first published in 2019)
Goodreads Rating
The #1 New York Times bestseller that has all America talking: as seen/heard on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, Morning Joe, CBS This Morning, The Bill Simmons Podcast, Rich Roll, and more."The most important business--and parenting--book of the year." --Forbes"Urgent and important. . . an essential read for bosses, parents, coaches, and anyone who cares...
Rafat Ali
2019-10-17T13:08:26.000Z
I avoid all modern pop psychology books, but this contrarian book is really good & actually eye-opening. Highly recommend. Range by @DavidEpstein      source
India Moving book cover
India Moving
Chinmay Tumbe - 2018-07-20
The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu
Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
One Nation Under God by Kevin M. Kruse
The Invention of News by Andrew Pettegree
The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage
The Asian Mystique by Sheridan Prasso
Grand Tours and Cook's Tours by Lynne Withey
Land of Desire by William R. Leach