Power is not usually visible from inside it. The people exercising it often do not think of themselves as doing so, and the people subject to it have learned to treat it as natural. These books pull the camera back. They cover institutional power, political power, the soft power of norms and narratives, and the structural kind that operates without anyone clearly in charge. Some are historical, some are analytical, and one or two are personal. All of them will give you better tools for reading a room, a company, or a country.