David Kirkpatrick was handed the keys to the Facebook kingdom - the result is the definitive account of its phenomenal rise

Leaves you with a deep understanding of Facebook, its philosophies and, most startlingly, its power. You come away with a creepy new awareness of how a directory of college students is fast becoming a directory of all humanity

A well-reported account of the first six years of one of the most important companies on earth

Mr. Kirkpatrick provides some intriguing insights into the psyche of Mr. Zuckerberg

A compelling account of the origins and prospects of the social networking giant

Along the way, Zuckerberg has turned down acquisition offers of as much as $15 billion; worked with and against technology giants Google, Microsoft and Viacom; and knocked heads with privacy advocates. Those are some of the gems in the illuminating new book

Understanding Facebook's success is crucial to understanding the modern internet, and this is the definitive account of its rise and rise. Kirkpatrick's story is an important contribution to the biography of the digital age, and one of the most startling stories of human ingenuity and appetite you'll find on any shelf

Fascinating ... exciting ... The book is packed with interviews from all the key players, including Zuckerberg and Moskovitz. Kirkpatrick's subjects open up about everything

This fast paced narrative captures the excitement of the startup world and reminds me of the early days of Wikipedia when I realized we were onto something big. A big revelation is how Mark Zuckerberg's idealism led him to focus on product improvements rather than short-term revenue gains, and how critical this was to the company's success

Facebook is becoming the dominant social networking tool, facilitating our online and offline worlds. The Facebook Effect effectively shows its rapid evolution, where it is going, and how it will increasingly affect our lives

Mr. Kirkpatrick doesn't coddle his subject, yet he presents Mr. Zuckerberg's point of view much more comprehensibly than we have seen it before ... The author lets you get inside Mr. Zuckerberg's head

Mr. Kirkpatrick ... was encouraged by Mr. Zuckerberg to write this book and was granted extensive access to him and his associates ... [Kirkpatrick] gives the reader a detailed understanding ... [and] still does an animated job of evoking the collegiate atmosphere that reigned at the company

A carefully reported book that should change the way you think about a very unusual enterprise ... does the best job yet of making sense of Facebook's founder, 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg

Kirkpatrick's amazing reporting details what happens when a hacker culture turns into a multi-billion-dollar firm. Mark Zuckerberg sought to maintain that hacker energy, and it's fascinating to hear what resulted

Engrossing. . . . A detailed and scrupulously fair history of [Facebook]

An illuminating glimpse behind the red curtain ... McGregor's lucid dissection shows how top-ranked party members - indeed the party itself - sit outside the law

What Money Can't Buy is replete with examples of what money can, in fact, buy ... Sandel has a genius for showing why such changes are deeply important

Michael Sandel ... is currently the most effective communicator of ideas in English

Sandel, the most famous teacher of philosophy in the world, has shown that it is possible to take philosophy into the public square without insulting the public's intelligence

A book that can persuade people that the rules of the economy don't just reflect our values, they help to determine them

Fascinating exploration of the alarming encroachment of market philosophy on so many aspects of our lives