Books both Balaji Srinivasan and Network School Reading List recommend

x.com

“Dalio's video is good. Worth watching. But he doesn't model the effects of tech. Yes, China is rising & US state capacity is in decline. Yet US corporations still wield phenomenal digital power, and BTC/web3 are rising, as is India. So it's more complex.”

Tweet from March 13, 2022 recommending Dalio's framework while flagging its blindspot on digital power.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Rebuilding reading mapping the long cycles by which reserve currencies and great powers rise and fall.

balajianthology.com · Balajis Recommended Reading

“The most prescient thing in the world. You can take one page and turn it into a Ph.D thesis.”

Balaji recommends it as the foundational text for understanding how cryptography will replace territorial sovereignty — the direct intellectual predecessor to his Network State concept.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Crypto reading: the 1997 forecast of how digital money would let individuals escape the nation-state.

balajianthology.com · Balajis Recommended Reading

Listed in Balaji's For Founders section of recommended reading; he points founders to Ridley for the bottom-up, recombinant view of innovation.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Rebuilding reading on why innovation flourishes under freedom and incremental trial, not central direction.

thenetworkstate.com · Fragmentation Frontier Fourth Turning Future Is Our Past

“history is a boneyard”

Cited by name in The Network State, chapter on Fragmentation, Frontier, and the Fourth Turning, to argue that current geopolitical arrangements are transient.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Macrohistory reading using ancient DNA to rewrite the deep story of human migration and population mixing.

twitter.com

“Kai-Fu Lee's book AI Superpowers holds up very well today in key ways.”

From a tweet by Balaji Srinivasan recommending the book.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Tech reading on the US–China contest to lead the AI era and its geopolitical stakes.

x.com

“Lee Kuan Yew wrote a book. From third world to first. Back then he admired San Francisco. But today, history is running in reverse. Going from Singapore to San Francisco… …is from first world to third.”

Tweet from September 16, 2023 contrasting Singapore's ascent with San Francisco's decline.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Political case study: the firsthand account of building Singapore, the curriculum's model for a startup society that worked.

tim.blog · Balaji Srinivasan

Linked in the show notes of Tim Ferriss episode #506 (March 24, 2021) where Balaji discussed centralized-planning failures.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Political case study on why grand schemes to engineer society from above so often fail.

twitter.com

“It's not easy [to rebuild after black swan events] but may be easier...”

From a tweet by Balaji Srinivasan referencing the book.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Rebuilding reading: a practical guide to reconstructing civilization's technology from scratch.

balajianthology.com · Balajis Recommended Reading

Balaji credits it with teaching him how regulatory capture works at the bureaucratic level, directly informing his arguments for pro-biotech and longevity-science reform.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Regulation case study of how a single agency accumulated and wielded power over an entire industry.

twitter.com

“Sean McMeekin's latest tour-de-force makes a strong case that Stalin...”

From a tweet by Balaji Srinivasan recommending the book.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Macrohistory case study reframing the Second World War around Stalin's aims and the remaking of the twentieth-century order.

thenetworkstate.com · Fragmentation Frontier Fourth Turning Future Is Our Past

Cited extensively in The Network State as part of Balaji's cyclical-history trio (with Turchin and Dalio) forecasting Western instability.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Macrohistory reading on the generational cycles that drive societies through crisis and renewal.

balajianthology.com · Balajis Recommended Reading

“10/10 recommendation. I put this up there with The Sovereign Individual.”

Quoted in The Anthology of Balaji's recommended reading archive; Balaji has repeatedly elevated this book on his podcast and Twitter appearances.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Macrohistory selection on how the dominant media narrative has shaped — and distorted — the historical record.

twitter.com

“More and more frequently, I point people to Paul Vigna and Michael Casey's book...”

From a tweet by Balaji Srinivasan recommending the book.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Crypto reading on how blockchains create trust and could rewire economic institutions.

thenetworkstate.com · Fragmentation Frontier Fourth Turning Future Is Our Past

Cited in The Network State for Turchin's timestamped, quantitative predictions of US elite overproduction and instability.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Macrohistory text applying Turchin's cliodynamics to the cycles of imperial cohesion and collapse.

x.com

“Read this after you read the Sovereign Individual. The future we will fund after correcting the fiat deviation of 1971.”

Tweet from March 16, 2021, pairing Hall's book with The Sovereign Individual as the next foundational text for builders.

Balaji's Network School Curriculum

Regulation reading on how stalled technological progress traces back to risk aversion and regulatory drag.