iv'e read about 10 on this list of business history and economic theory books
The Smartest Books We Know
FORTUNE offers the ultimate reading list: 75 books that teach you everything you really need to know about business.

By JERRY USEEM
March 21, 2005
The Smartest Books We Know - March 21, 2005
my two favorite are:
EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE MADNESS OF CROWDS by Charles Mackay (1841). This chronicle of Holland's tulip mania of 1634 and the South Sea Bubble of 1720, among other irrational crazes, is an engaging, perceptive account of humanity's urge to plunge itself into speculative frenzies.
TITAN: THE LIFE OF JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER SR. by Ron Chernow (1998). If 75 books were burning and you could save just one, this might be it: a biography as powerful and detail-minded as its subject.
leave out the fantastic mothership and master fard stuff and this an absolute necessity for all brehs. improving yourself, self reliance, feeding and protecting your family are the major themes that resonated with me.
Message to the Blackman in America by Elijah Muhammad Published 1965
also, anything writings by Marcus Garvey and historian J.A. Rogers