Quick answer
The closest matches are Give and Take by Adam Grant, on why generous people can also succeed, and Humankind by Rutger Bregman, which argues that most people are decent. For the moral case for giving more, The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer is the classic; the list below also includes the sharpest critic of elite philanthropy.
8 books to read after Infectious Generosity
Give and TakeClosest match
Grant, an organisational psychologist at the Wharton School, sorts people at work into givers, takers and matchers. Drawing on research and case studies, he argues that givers are over-represented both at the bottom and at the top of success measures, and explains what separates the two groups.
Why read itLike Anderson, Grant makes generosity a practical strategy rather than only a virtue, and uses research to show what it does for the giver.
HumankindClosest match
First published in Dutch in 2019 as De meeste mensen deugen, the book argues that people are fundamentally decent and that cynical assumptions about human nature make people behave worse. Bregman retells cases such as six Tongan boys shipwrecked on the island of ʻAta in 1965. Some reviewers have accused him of selective use of sources.
Why read itIt gives the foundation Anderson’s optimism rests on: the claim that kindness, not selfishness, is the human default.
The Life You Can Save
Singer, a moral philosopher, starts from the duty to save a child drowning in front of you and argues that giving to effective aid agencies is the same obligation. He proposes giving at least 1% of income and founded an organisation of the same name after the book. Singer’s views on other subjects, notably disability, remain highly controversial.
Why read itWhere Anderson asks people to give because it spreads joy, Singer asks them to give because not giving is wrong; together they cover both arguments.
Altruism
Ricard, a French-born Buddhist monk with a doctorate in molecular genetics, argues that altruism is a real human capacity that can be cultivated, and that it offers answers to economic and environmental crises. The English edition appeared in 2015.
Why read itIt makes the same claim as Anderson, that generosity can be grown and spread, from contemplative practice and psychology rather than media.
Braiding Sweetgrass
Kimmerer, a botanist and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, combines Indigenous knowledge and Western science in essays about plants and land. She frames the relationship between people and the earth as one of gifts and reciprocity.
Why read itIt treats generosity as a relationship of mutual obligation, which gives Anderson’s idea of giving an ecological and Indigenous dimension.
The Gift
Mauss, a sociologist, studied exchange in societies such as the Pacific Northwest, with its potlatch, and the Trobriand Islands, with the Kula ring. He argued that gifts are never free but carry three obligations: to give, to receive and to reciprocate.
Why read itIt is the founding study of why giving spreads, the dynamic Anderson calls infectious, and of the social debts that come with it.
Winners Take All
Giridharadas argues that wealthy elites use philanthropy to look as though they are changing the world while protecting the system that makes them rich. He criticises elite forums such as the World Economic Forum and the Clinton Global Initiative, and says private generosity is offered as a substitute for justice.
Why read itIt is the strongest argument against the kind of big-donor giving celebrated in Anderson’s book, and the right counterweight to read alongside it.
Mutual Aid
Kropotkin, a naturalist, collected essays arguing against social Darwinism that cooperation has survival value for animals and humans alike. He traces mutual aid from animal communities through medieval guilds to the labour movement.
Why read itIt is the evolutionary case, more than a century earlier, for Anderson’s claim that cooperation is as natural to people as competition.
Frequently asked questions about books like Infectious Generosity
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