Books Folder - 2008 onwards!!!

[Airavat]

Once a Prince of Sarila

When Narendra Singh, heir to the tiny princedom of Sarila in central India, was first asked his name by a schoolteacher, he did not know how to answer: no one had ever needed to ask who he was before.

Sarila and his family did not abandon a sense of the obligations of nobility. In recognition of the young prince's accomplishments, and his sobriety, after independence he was invited to join Mountbatten's staff. Installed as aide-de-camp, Sarila learned such domestic secrets as how to behave when he inadvertently walked in as the Viceroy was leaving his bath.

Sarila was present for the fraught manoeuvres when Mountbatten and Nehru cajoled and threatened the 350 princely states into acceding to India. Sarila kept a diary in which notes on high-level diplomacy are interspersed with comments such as "I was not prepared for a tiger being shot between gimlets and the soufflé." He provides engaging vignettes of the big players.

A proud Indian (if not an active nationalist), the young prince was once asked if he would be prepared to lose his kingdom if it were the price he would have to pay for Indian independence. He unhesitatingly said yes, and that was the right answer; the attitude that informed it was the reason why Sarila kept a position in society in modern India, becoming a senior diplomat, ultimately ambassador to France and to Spain. His previous book, Shadow of the Great Game, was an overview of the events leading up to partition, but this funny, engaging memoir shows more of the man himself.

[Philip]

This not a book review but an exhibition on Ian Fleming's novel WW2 scheme to steal the German codebook during the war.Fleming was also involved in other secret operations including the one that allegedly rescued Martin Borman out of Berlin just before its fall.This was because Borman was the treasurer of the Nazi party and his signatures were required to obtain the billions of loot secretly stashed away in Swiss bank vaults.The Allies also obtained part of the Japanese loot (Golden Lily operations) after the war by threatening to put Hirohito and the leading Japanese Zaibatsu on trial for war crimes and other atrocities.These pickings went into the pokets of the allied leadership and military top brass.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 694989.ece

From The TimesApril 7, 2008

Ian Fleming's novel plan to outwit the Nazis
Ben Hoyle, Arts Reporter

A secret mission cooked up by Ian Fleming in September 1940, more than a decade before he created James Bond, appears as preposterous as any adventure that he devised for his fictional creation.

Fleming, in his role as a naval intelligence officer in the Second World War, was the architect of Operation Ruthless, a daring scheme to seize a German codebook that may have inspired From Russia with Love.

His plan, involving a staged aircraft crash and disguised commandos, is revealed in full at a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London. It was devised after codebreakers at Bletchley Park realised that they could not efficiently decipher messages sent by the German navy without their conversion tables.

Fleming’s idea was to borrow a captured Luftwaffe bomber and fake a crash to attract one of the German rescue boats picking up airmen who had gone down in the English Channel. Fleming’s men would then overpower the crew and make off with their codebook. The pilot, he noted with a novelist’s precision, should be a “tough bachelor, able to swimâ€

[svinayak]

The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History
by Gordon S. Wood (Author)


# Hardcover: 336 pages
# Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (March 13, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1594201544
# ISBN-13: 978-1594201547

The subtitle of this latest offering from Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Wood (The Radicalism of the American Revolution) is far grander than what he delivers between the covers: a collection of 21 book reviews of works by Simon Schama, Theodore Draper and Joyce Appleby, among others, written over the past three decades for periodicals like the New York Review of Books and the New Republic. Though reviews are occasional pieces not designed to be republished years later, some of Wood's pieces make enduring points. He lambastes scholars who clutter their writing with unintelligible jargon, and he worries that today's historical scholarship, too driven by present concerns, fails to retain a sense of how the past really is different. He makes clear that he prefers old-fashioned political history to cultural history that draws on postmodern theory. Indeed, the book is maddeningly repetitive: Wood invokes Peter Novick's This Noble Dream over and over, though not as often as he laments the use of theory in cultural history and the radical Foucault-like agendas that seem to drive certain literary historians. This volume is not without merit, but rather than appending a short afterword to each review, Wood would have done better to craft a new, unified reflection on the discipline of history. (Mar. 17)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Reflections on the historian's craft and its place in American culture, from a master craftsman

History is to society what memory is to the individual: without it, we don't know who we are, and we can't make wise decisions about where we should be going. But while the nature of memory is a constant, the nature of history has changed radically over the past forty years, for good but also for ill. In The Purpose of the Past, historian Gordon S. Wood examines the sea change in the field through considerations of some of its most important historians and their works. His book serves as both a history of American history-neither wholly a celebration nor a critique-and an argument for its ongoing necessity.

These are both the best of times and the worst of times for American history. New currents of thought have brought refreshing and vitally necessary changes to the discipline, expanding its compass to include previously underexamined and undervalued groups and subjects. At the same time, however, strains of extreme, even nihilistic, relativism have assaulted the relevance, even the legitimacy, of the historian's work. The divide between the work of academic and popular historians has widened into a chasm, separating some of the field's most important new ideas from what would give them much greater impact: any kind of real audience.

But The Purpose of the Past is not another crotchety elegy for what history once was but sadly now isn't; it is also a celebration of what, at its best, it is, and a powerful argument for its ongoing necessity. Along the way The Purpose of the Past offers wonderful insight into what great historians do, and how they can stumble, and what strains of thought have dominated the marketplace of ideas in historical scholarship. A master historian's commanding assessment of his field, The Purpose of the Past will enlarge the capacity to appreciate history of anyone who reads it

[ramana]

Looks like a good book to read about the West.

Elusive past recalled

THE ELUSIVE PAST RECALLED
Editor's Choice



Coronation of Charlemagne
I wish I’d Been there: Twenty historians revisit key moments in history

Edited by Byron Hollinshead and Theodore K. Rabb,
Macmillan, £11.50

Historians are perpetually in an unenviable position. Their discipline demands that they recreate the past, which is an elusive task. Historians can never go back to the past, they can only access the past through some traces the past has left behind. Historians cling to these traces as their sources for recreating the past. These sources are by definition poor substitutes for actually being present as an event unfolded. Given this disadvantage, what historians try to do is to situate themselves in the past and to imagine what it was actually like in the past. The recreation of the past has to be acceptable and persuasive: history is inextricably linked to rhetoric.

Keeping the disadvantages that historians face and the purpose of their discipline, the editors of this volume asked some scholars (mostly historians) to pick a moment in the past that they would like to inhabit. These historians thus faced two issues: first, choosing an event and second, demonstrating its significance. The choices are fascinating as the essays in this book, all lucidly written without even the hint of jargon and academic specialization, range from politics to science to literature and art.

The book opens with an essay on the death of Alexander the Great on the afternoon of June 11, 323 BC on the banks of the Euphrates in the city of Babylon. He was so ill that he could hardly move or speak. He was in his early thirties. Josiah Ober, a historian of the classical world, would have liked to have been present in Babylon as the conqueror lay dying. The event allows him to look back briefly on Alexander’s conquests and his efforts to give a structure to the vast empire he had acquired. What were his plans for the future? How was he mourned? These are the questions that draw the historian.

In another essay, Theodore K. Rabb looks at one of the pivotal moments of European history and culture: the coronation of Charlemagne as the Holy Roman Emperor on December 25, 800 AD. From around 604, the papacy had been in complete disarray and no city in Western Europe was in a flourishing condition. The centre of what had been Roman civilization had shifted to Constantinople where the ruler continued to call himself the Roman Emperor, as the successor to Constantine the Great. The conflict between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western one was both spiritual and temporal, covering a range of issues from taxes to modes of worship. In the late 8th century, Western church found a protector in the Frankish king, Charlemagne, whose armies swept aside all opposition from Germany to Spain, from Brittany to Hungary. Rabb would have loved to have been present in the long-drawn-out negotiations between Charlemagne and Pope Leo III that led to the coronation and bizarre tension between empire and papacy that marked the history of medieval Europe.

There are other essays here on the signing of the Magna Carta; the momentous meeting, outside London, between King Richard II and the peasants led by Wat Tyler; the secret visit of the future Charles I to Madrid; the making of Newton’s Principia; the great exhibition that saw Edouard Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe; Picasso’s only involvement with ballet and so on.

All the essays are lively and the reader can take his pick according to his tastes. The essays are arranged chronologically and thus offer an entry into European history and culture.

Wish there was an Indian moments in history book like this. Maybe we can take this up in the Distortions thread.

[Adrija]

Just finished reading "Colossus", Niall Ferguson's book about the American empire.

Interesting one, compares the British Raj to the American one and concludes that the major reason for the Iraq misadventure is the lack of an ICS-like corps of citizens willing to settle and administer for the long term.

More germane to us desis, he is a MAJOR apologist for the Raj, holds it to be wonderful even for India........ in one of the pages actually wrote that the Raj in India was not "colonial" enough! No word of the loot and de-industrialization.

Amazing that such views are still held and propagated

[svinayak]

A British Government Official Presents an Insightful
Analysis of Culture, Colonialism and Rebellion

The Heart of Aryavarta
by Lawrence J.L. Dundas
Edited by Paul Dennis Sporer

A masterpiece of psychological evaluation of culture, religion, patriotism and rebellion, The Heart of Âryâvarta is a penetrating investigation of a complex society at a critical time in its history. At the beginning of the 20th century, India’s evolving nationalist movement, led by educated and cultured men such as Gandhi, was gaining strength. The British, whose colonial agencies had dominated Indian life for generations, were unable to fathom this desire for independence. Lawrence Dundas, a statesman and administrator, unlike most of his countrymen, did not contemptuously dismiss this movement, but committed himself to fully understanding the underlying economic and political factors that drove forward its systematic rejection of British rule. However, Dundas takes the discussion much further than politics. Using first-hand observation, as well as in-depth research, he articulates the positive goals of the Indian nationalists, which were founded on the idea of a return to a golden age of peace, wisdom, and fulfilment that existed before the arrival of the colonialists. Despite his position and background, Dundas demonstrates that he has a profound knowledge of the deep-seated human need for social and cultural development free from external interference. He sympathizes with the difficulties of the Indian people, and sincerely attempts to see their desire for autonomy from their perspective. The Heart of Âryâvarta is an excellent analysis that gives us critical information necessary for understanding the complex dynamics of colonialism and nation-building.

Available Now! To order this book, please click here.

Additional Resources:
Click here to read a free 12 page EXCERPT from the book
Click here to find out how to obtain this book from your library
Other similar titles:
Newer Ideals of Peace, by Jane Addams; Is Secession Treason?, by Albert Bledsoe.

Book Specifics

Full title: The Heart of Âryâvarta, The Psychology of Social Unrest,
by Lawrence J.L Dundas
Revised and Enhanced Edition, with new index and preface
Imprint: Quanterness Press; 268 pages
Format: Hardcover: 6â€

[ramana]

There is a 12 page pdf called "Panegyrics of the Past" which gives clear indication that this is also another distortion by the British despite the blurb of sympathy.

[Keshav]

There is a 12 page pdf called "Panegyrics of the Past" which gives clear indication that this is also another distortion by the British despite the blurb of sympathy.

What does that PDF say about the book?

[svinayak]

Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960
by Milton Friedman (Author), Anna Jacobson Schwartz (Author)


# Paperback: 888 pages
# Publisher: Princeton University Press; New Ed edition (November 1, 1971)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0691003548
# ISBN-13: 978-0691003542

Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz' A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 is an analysis and explanation of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its conclusion, first published in the early 1960s, differs from the two main explanations that existed at the time.

Austrian Business Cycle Theory had argued that the Great Depression was caused by excessively loose monetary policy that fed an unsustainable economic boom during the 1920s, which eventually collapsed into depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that instead it was excessively tight monetary policy following the boom of the 1920s that turned a run-of-the-mill recession into a depression. (For the Austrian explanation of the Great Depression, see Sir Lionel Robbins' The Great Depression or Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression.)

Keynesianism argued that the Great Depression had been caused by insufficient consumer product demand and lack of investor confidence, and that government should compensate for this by increasing its spending and financing it with government debt. Friedman and Schwartz argued instead that the problem and solution were not so much a matter of fiscal policy as they were a matter of monetary policy. Government, particularly the monetary authorities, was the cause of the depression, not the solution. Stimulative fiscal policy as prescribed by Keynes would in the long run not lead to an increase in economic growth and employment, but only to an increase in inflation. (For the Keynesian explanation of the Great Depression, see John M. Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money or John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash, 1929.)

At the time of its publication, A Monetary History was not immediately accepted by the economics profession, which then was still dominated by Keynesian thinking. But when Keynesian theory could not explain the stagflation (recession combined with high inflation) of the 1970s, monetarism came to rule the day, and Friedman would go on to win the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics.

Friedman and Schwartz's analysis has by now become the standard explanation for the Great Depression. In the very least, the book helped reestablish the importance of monetary over fiscal policy in the stabilization of the business cycle. Money matters, even if it is not the only thing that matters. In addition, the importance of the book was methodological, in that it emphasized the importance of the empirical testing of one's economic propositions. What makes the book so persuasive is the great lengths to which the authors go to sort out the causation behind the correlation-the causation, they found, ran from money to output and prices rather than vice versa or via a fourth variable.

A Monetary History is a classic work in the canon of economic literature. It is on occasion still reviewed in the literature (e.g. Journal of Monetary Economics, August 1994; Cato Journal, Winter 2004). It clearly is an academic work written for trained economists, making it perhaps less accessible to a general audience. But several highly readable summary versions of the book exist, such as chapter 3 of Milton and Rose Friedman's Free to Choose, and even a one-paragraph summary conclusion in Capitalism and Freedom (on p. 45 of the paperback edition), which was published around the same time as A Monetary History. Alternatively, ch. 13 ("A Summing Up", pp. 676-700) is reprinted in The Essence of Friedman.

The most important part of this book is the section on the Great Contraction. Federal Reserve policy did contract the money supply by 1/3 during the early years of the depression. The Federal Reserve did revive the depression by increasing reserve requirements in 1937. The collapse of the banking system collapsed the real economy. The recovery of the banking system was important to the recovery of industry. Money matters.

The style of this book is excellent. Considering the sophistication of its subject matter, it is highly readable. It gets into both statistics and relevant written history. It also has a helpful appendix on the determinants of the money supply.

There are some problems with this book. Money is not all that matters. Government policies that prevented wage deflation contributed greatly to the Great Depression. Of course, this book was meant to focus on monetary history alone, as the title implies. But, readers must keep the limitations of such a narrow focus in mind when considering the explanatory power of this book. Its' authors also have too little appreciation for private banking systems (Friedman latter embraced free banking). Despite its' limitations, this book is important as a empirical source for understanding how money matters to economic conditions.

[svinayak]

Greenspan's Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve
by William Fleckenstein (Author), Fred Sheehan (Author)

# Hardcover: 208 pages
# Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (January 16, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0071591583
# ISBN-13: 978-0071591584

[quote]
No matter who you are-investor, trader, homeowner, 401(k) holder, or CEO-you are bound to feel the impact of Alan Greenspan's “Age of Ignoranceâ€

[svinayak]

Alliance Curse: How America Lost the Third World
by Hilton L. Root (Author)

# Hardcover: 250 pages
# Publisher: Brookings Institution Press (May 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0815775563
# ISBN-13: 978-0815775560

In Alliance Curse, Hilton Root illustrates that recent U.S. foreign policy is too often misguided, resulting in misdirected foreign aid and alliances that stunt political and economic development among partner regimes, leaving America on the wrong side of change. Many alliances with third world dictators, ostensibly of mutual benefit, reduce incentives to govern for prosperity and produce instead political and social instability and economic failure. Yet again, in the war on terror and in the name of preserving global stability, America is backing authoritarian regimes that practice repression and plunder. It is as if the cold war never ended.

While espousing freedom and democracy, the U.S. contradicts itself by aiding governments that do not share those values. In addition to undercutting its own stated goal of promoting freedom, America makes the developing world even more wary of its intentions. Yes, the democracy we preach arouses aspirations and attracts immigrants, but those same individuals become our sternest critics; having learned to admire American values, they end up deploring U.S. policies toward their own countries. Long-term U.S. security is jeopardized by a legacy of resentment and distrust.

Alliance Curse proposes an analytical foundation for national security that challenges long-held assumptions about foreign affairs. It questions the wisdom of diplomacy that depends on questionable linkages or outdated suppositions. The end of the Soviet Union did not portend the demise of communism, for example. Democracy and socialism are not incompatible systems. Promoting democracy by linking it with free trade risks overemphasizing the latter goal at the expense of the former. The growing tendency to play China against India in an effort to retain American global supremacy will hamper relations with both—an intolerable situation in today’s interdependent world.

Root buttresses his analysis with case studies of American foreign policy toward developing countries (e.g., Vietnam), efforts at state building, and nations growing in importance, such as China. He concludes with a series of recommendations designed to close the gap between security and economic development.

[svinayak]

Vishnu's Crowded Temple: India since the Great Rebellion
by Maria Misra (Author)

# Hardcover: 592 pages
# Publisher: Yale University Press (March 31, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0300137214
# ISBN-13: 978-0300137217

As it enters its sixtieth year of independence, India stands on the threshold of superpower status. Yet India is strikingly different from all other global colossi. While it is the world’s most populous democracy and enjoys the benefits of its internationally competitive high-tech and software industries, India also contends with extremes of poverty, inequality, and political and religious violence.



This accessible and vividly written book presents a new interpretation of India’s history, focusing particular attention on the impact of British imperialism on Independent India. Maria Misra begins with the rebellion against the British in 1857 and tracks the country’s advance to the present day. India’s extremes persist, the author argues, because its politics rest upon a peculiar foundation in which traditional ideas of hierarchy, difference, and privilege coexist to a remarkable degree with modern notions of equality and democracy. The challenge of India’s leaders today, as in the last sixty years, is to weave together the disparate threads of the nation’s ancient culture, colonial legacy, and modern experience.


About the Author

Maria Misra is university lecturer in modern history and fellow of Keble College, Oxford University. She is the author of Business, Race, and Politics in British India. She lives in Oxford.



If your interest in India is broader than Gandhi, though, or if his biography whets your appetite for more -- then this new historical analysis of modern India by Oxford scholar Maria Misra is an intriguing choice.

No, this is not a sweeping narrative of dramatic scenes from the Raj to the modern scene. It's actually more valuable, because it uses history to explore why this emerging global superpower still mystifies the world with its complex religious, cultural and social divisions.

One of Misra's most striking arguments is that, rather than passively observing India's caste system, the Raj actually manipulated and hardened caste distinctions to make the country easier for the British to rule.

Here's a good test of your interest: If you occasionally enjoy flipping the pages of Foreign Policy or the Economist, then this book's style is right for you

[svinayak]

America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
by Mark Steyn (Author)



# Hardcover: 214 pages
# Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc. (September 16, 2006)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0895260786
# ISBN-13: 978-0895260789

In this, his first major book, Mark Steyn--probably the most widely read, and wittiest, columnist in the English-speaking world--takes on the great poison of the twenty-first century: the anti-Americanism that fuels both Old Europe and radical Islam. America, Steyn argues, will have to stand alone. The world will be divided between America and the rest; and for our sake America had better win.

From the Inside Flap
It’s the end of the world as we know it…

Someday soon, you might wake up to the call to prayer from a muezzin. Europeans already are.

And liberals will still tell you that "diversity is our strength"—while Talibanic enforcers cruise Greenwich Village burning books and barber shops, the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesn’t violate the "separation of church and state," and the Hollywood Left decides to give up on gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy.

If you think this can’t happen, you haven’t been paying attention, as the hilarious, provocative, and brilliant Mark Steyn—the most popular conservative columnist in the English-speaking world—shows to devastating effect in this, his first and eagerly awaited new book on American and global politics.

The future, as Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and the confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West—wedded to a multiculturalism that undercuts its own confidence, a welfare state that nudges it toward sloth and self-indulgence, and a childlessness that consigns it to oblivion—is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization.

Europe, laments Steyn, is almost certainly a goner. The future, if the West has one, belongs to America alone—with maybe its cousins in brave Australia. But America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the world’s last best hope.

Steyn argues that, contra the liberal cultural relativists, America should proclaim the obvious: we do have a better government, religion, and culture than our enemies, and we should spread America’s influence around the world—for our own sake as well as theirs.

Mark Steyn’s America Alone is laugh-out-loud funny—but it will also change the way you look at the world. It is sure to be the most talked-about book of the year.
Regular readers of Mr. Steyn will not be unfamiliar with his central points:

1) In the ongoing conflict between the West and Islam, both the demographics and the will to power favor the Islamists. That a country like Spain, with a birth rate of 1.15 children per adult women, will extinguish itself in a few generations, while immigrants from countries such as Pakistan (birth rate 4.53) will move in to fill the vacuum.

2) That as an aggressive, unassimilated minority edges closer to a majority (as in France, with an estimated 30% Muslim population in the under 20 age group), the character of the democratic institutions will become more closely aligned with Islamic law and culture.

3) That the post-Christian welfare state is largely to blame for the pessimism and failures of will demonstrated by Europe.

4) That America represents the primary exception to this trend, if only by degree, and that only a concerted effort to save our society stands a chance of reversing these trends.

That's a reasonable précis of Steyn's book, and he is certainly not unique in either his diagnosis or his prescription for the West. What sets this apart is his writing. The argument is made in a way that is the most engrossing and entertaining presentation of these ideas I've ever read. Steyn, as part of his superhuman writing regimen, is the obituarist for The Atlantic Monthly, and he puts that talent on display. This is not just a description of a set of demographic realities, but a loving, if premature (he hopes), obituary to a dying great culture. It's Steyn's ability to blend humor with the terminal diagnosis that sets him apart.

Take the following, from letting the book fall open at random (pages 60-61), where Steyn weaves together these seemingly disparate ideas: a photo of Lincoln with his future assassin in near proximity, the globalization at the root of a bird flu scare ("Any minute now there would be toxic cockatoos over the white cliffs of Dover, and the East End would be reeling under a blitzkrieg of sneezing parakeets"), the Black Death in Europe in the 1340s, the exportation of radical Islam from the Bedouin to the West, and finally a quote for Dean Martin's old nightclub act. I can't even describe it adequately; Steyn actually pulls it off, brilliantly.

Finally, I'd like to try to approach the book from the opposite direction. Invariably, political book reviews become contentious. It may be apparent that I came to this book predisposed to agree with the thesis, and I would not argue. That said, I think this is one of the rare political books that could be read and enjoyed regardless of personal politics. Dare I say it, but Steyn might even change some minds. Between his inventive turns of phrase, his references to pop culture and classic Americana, and his interesting digressions on topics as diverse as the heyday of French television and European history in the Middle Ages, Steyn offers something for everyone. And that's appropriate. Unlike many political books, this does not seem written to say "I'm right and you're wrong", but rather "we're all in this together".


Mark Steyn is an astute observer of today's geopolitical scene, especially the rising tide of Muslim fundamentalism in Europe. This is a sober subject with ominous implications for the free world. Yet Steyn consistently leavens his commentaries with razor-sharp wit and trenchant one-liners.

On Russia's abominable 70% abortion rate: "Russian women are voting with their fetuses."

On opinion polls showing 49% of Egyptians believe the Mossad is responsible for a recent terrorist resort-hotel bombing: "Denial is more than a river in Egypt."

How about this anecdote (my favorite): In the fall of 2003, a mass panic swept Sudan. Foreigners were shaking hands with Sudanese men, causing them to lose their masculinity. One merchant reported that a west African entered his store and shook his hand powerfully until he felt his [male organ] melt into his body. "I know the feeling," Steyn writes. "The same thing happened to me when I shook hands with Senator Clinton."

Humor aside, Steyn raises serious questions about the West's willingness to confront virulent Muslim fundamentalism (on display once again with the reaction to Pope Benedict's recent comments) and capacity to prevail in the "long war."

Steyn does his homework. If you like information on demographic trends, certain projects of what the future might be for Europe, Japan, and the U.S. then this is a great read.

It is quite sobering and may even depress you a bit based on how Europe is changing with a massive influx of muslims coming in from Moracco the Middle East and Southeast Asia. There are a few points I would disagree with Steyn on Japan. I do believe the Japanese purposely want their population to go down slowly given the size and resources of their archipeligo nation, it isn't diminishing because of mass infusion of new workers from the Islamic world. For the Japanese, it's a shrewd move on their part.

However, Europe is another issue. It's a mess. The caucasian races are not producing children and to keep their over-inflated social systems in place (something we may have contributed in the formation with the Marshall Plan)... they need new workers, blood, even if it comes from the places vastly different in values to their own. The French city riots that happened a few years ago had substantially large numbers of youth from muslim households. Certain laws in England have been changed to accommodate a more aggressive Islamic population living there. These are only a few of the changes being seen today.

Steyn gives some provocative points and a decent level of raw and refined data to show this demographic shift. The long-term ramifications are what shaped the title of the book... "America Alone." That sense that we might be alone among the nations may happen sooner than we imagine. Although there are some who would say we always have been "alone," and that America has always marched to a different drummer than the Europeans.

Overall, a good read, and definitely a source of discussion for many. I do recommend his work. Admittedly, it focuses on demographics, and I feel Steyn could have expanded this further.

[vsunder]

I have finished reading "Brazen Chariots". Its by a former South African test cricketer, a fast bowler Robert Crisp. The entire action is compressed into 25 days and involves epic tank battles in the western desert. The title "Brazen Chariots" comes from Milton. I must recommend this book.
It is a wonderfully written book and a must read for anyone who is interested in matters "armour". One senses fear, chaos, stupidity and off course just calm courage. The author is self-deprecating and makes fun of what was accomplished and what gets reported in the press and media.

Brazen Chariots

I have now started a book by Alan Morehead. It too is about the North African campaign. There are interludes in the book when Morehead is in India during the Cripps mission. Morehead knew Crisp well.
Desert War

There are two other books I have always enjoyed of Morehead. They are masterpieces of writing.

Blue Nile

This book is superb and a must read.
White Nile

Ramana I will send you a copy of Brazen Chariots, thats for the CD's hehe!

[vsunder]

I like Simon Winchester. He is methodical and always interesting. His books mix history, very often geology. Two books of his I liked very much dealt with the San Andreas Fault and another one on the devastating
explosion of Krakatoa off the Indonesian coast in the Sunda Straits. This is still very active as was evinced by the tsunami of 2004.

The Crack at the Edge of the Earth

The Day the world exploded

There are many diversions in his books to Dutch colonial history, to the origin of the word Krakatoa could it be "karkataha"(crab).

He then wrote a book on a madman who compiled the Oxford Dictionary.

Now comes his new book on Joseph Needham-- The man who loved China. In 1937 England Needham was a "brilliant biochemist who fell in love with a beautiful Chinese woman who enticed him to come to China.
There Needham made numerous expeditions to remote parts of China and gathered material for 17 volumes documenting Chinese innovations like paper, ancient technology and so formed through his volumes a basis for western understanding of China.

The Man who Loved China

[vsunder]

A long time ago when I was very young I read a book called Gods, Graves and Scholars. It was a very compressed history of archaelogy and the first chapter dealt with the legendary Champollion who cracked Egyptian hieroglyphs using the Rosetta Stone. The last chapter was "remaining mysteries" principally the Indus valley script. Some time ago a friend of mine who for some strange reason sends me books sent this book,

The search for the Buddha

Now let me warn you that Charles Allen can sound like a "raj type" after all his family has roots in Kanpur, the Cooper-Allen family who partially owned the shoe and leather company known in former days as Flex.
Kanpur denizens will also know Allen forest, now completely engulfed by the city, and in my time in that infamous city supposedly the scene of trysts between lovers and their paramours, so certain people would have me believe. So...

But the book is not about people who spun theories, Aryan Invasion or otherwise but of real people who went into the field saw mounds and dug,
faced hostile rajas and assorted nawabs and villagers who were carting away the bricks from the Sanchi stupa, the stupa at Sarnath etc. for their own construction. So we have descriptions of Cunningham and his efforts of restoration at Sanchi to its current magnificence, the restoration of Bodh Gaya. The restoration of Nalanda and the search for the birthplace of the Buddha and the various shennanigans involved by interested parties in establishing priorities for various finds.

But two people do stand out. One is James Princep a complete amateur who had a day job in Kolkata in a business house and whose remaining hours were spent decoding Brahmi. This he eventually did. Thereby one could read the inscriptions on Asokan pillars and establish that Asoka was
a real person. Long hard work eventually killed Princep and he died at a young age while returning to England on his furlough. This is the Princep of Princep ghat in Kolkata. How Princep went about it bit by bit is a page turner. It may not rank at the level of Champollion but surely it shows tenacity and determination established at the cost of a complete breakdown in health.

Another fantastic character is Alexander Csoma de Koras a Hungarian vagrant born in Transylvania( Dracula's home state!!) in 1784??
Armed with some misguided notion that the Tibetans were related to the Hungarians he decided to translate the books of Mahayana Buddhism,
and thus represents the first person who did this. He was not even interested in the Buddhist faith. Today he lies buried in an obscure grave in Darjeeling.
The link below of the Archaeological survey of India tells a little more than what I wrote:

Sanchi and Princep

[svinayak]

Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century


# Hardcover: 272 pages
# Publisher: PublicAffairs (April 5, 2006)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1586483005
# ISBN-13: 978-1586483005

In 1945 the U.S. was the founding impulse behind the cornerstones of the International Community: the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and most of all the United Nations. Untainted by colonialism or fascism, heroic in warfare and idealistic at home, the U.S. presented itself as a paragon to inspire a less noble and divided world. Sixty years later, that perception had been almost completely reversed. America had, in fact, quietly sowed the seeds of its own decline in the eyes of the world in its own back yard. Anti-Americanism, now a global phenomenon, was road tested in South America when most of the rest of the world was too distracted to notice or care. There, under the guise of anti-communism, we sponsored dictatorships, turned a blind eye to killing squads and tolerated the subversion of democracy. Almost nobody knew, so it didn't matter, right? Wrong. On two counts. First, South America remembered. And second, encouraged by our success, we convinced ourselves that pre-emptive Americanism was a policy that could be shipped worldwide. This proved to be a big misjudgment. The world noticed and, helped by better scrutiny and faster technology, anti-Americanism flourished among America's closest allies beyond the Americas in a way and to a depth not seen before. As this reaches a crucial tipping point, Julia Sweig offers a brilliant and blistering history of what went wrong, and a feisty and compelling prescription for how to sort it out.
If Henry Luce was correct that the last century was the American century, will the 21st be the anti-American one? According to Julia E. Sweig, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, we are off to a bad start: "Since 2000, polls by over a half dozen organizations -- from Pew to Zogby, German Marshall Fund to the Guardian, Eurobarometer to Latinobarómetro -- have tracked the declining views about America, Americans, and U.S. foreign policy in every region of the world." Even a pro-American writer like Mario Vargas Llosa argued in June 2004 that images from Abu Ghraib prison and the Gaza Strip "have done more damage to the United States and Israel than all the bombs and the suicide attacks of the Islamic extremists in the last few months."

In her well researched and well written new book, Sweig acknowledges that anti-Americanism existed long before the administration of George W. Bush or the 2003 invasion of Iraq: As the big kid on the block, the United States is bound to engender feelings of envy and resentment. Moreover, demagogues in failing, corrupt and stagnant societies often use the United States as a scapegoat, blaming us for their own failure to cope with modernization and globalization.

Even so, it matters whether the big kid on the block acts as a bully or a friend. In Sweig's view, the Bush administration's controversial policies "stripped bare the latent structural anti-American animus that had accumulated over time." And the consequences, she warns, "are far more momentous than losing likeability. The new anti-American default has accelerated the process of the diminution of U.S. power." America's hard military power has grown, but our "soft power" -- the ability to get what we want by attraction rather than coercion -- has certainly declined in recent years.

As Sweig points out, the label "anti-American" covers a diverse set of attitudes that varies from country to country. "Just as the Inuits of Alaska have twenty-three words for ice, a part of nature that surrounds them and indeed defines their worldview," so South Koreans have eight separate words to describe their outlook on the ubiquitous United States -- loathe America, worship America, criticize America, resist America and so forth. In a series of interesting case studies, Sweig traces the historical roots of anti-Americanism in Korea, Turkey, Germany, Britain and Latin America (her academic specialty). In all these instances, the trend is unfavorable for the United States. (While Sweig mentions that Eastern Europe, India and Japan seem to have bucked this tendency, she devotes scant attention to them. A more thorough examination of these anomalies might have strengthened her book.) Anti-Americanism obviously feels unpleasant, but does it really hamper American power? Sweig argues that it does. She points out that after favorable attitudes toward the United States dropped from 52 percent in 2000 to 12 percent in 2003, Turkey -- a NATO ally -- refused to let U.S. troops cross its territory to fight in Iraq. Similarly, anti-Americanism inhibited pro-American leaders such as Vicente Fox of Mexico and Ricardo Lagos of Chile from supporting U.S. policies on Iraq at the U.N. Security Council. Moreover, foreign perceptions of U.S. hypocrisy continue to undercut the Bush administration's efforts to promote democracy. Being admired, Sweig writes, makes it easier to be effective.

Can these trends be reversed? To some degree. "The structural foundations feeding Anti-America will remain deep-rooted," Sweig notes, "but American citizens still have a choice about whether they and their children will have to lie and say they are Canadians in order to travel the world unharassed." Sweig worries about what she sees as "the answer du jour," the Bush administration's efforts to spend more money on broadcasting and public diplomacy. But the best advertising in the world will not sell a poor product: "How can public diplomacy overcome images of torture? It can't." Sweig wisely advises that "the answer is not to assert that the United States is committed to human rights but to implement policies that ban the practice of torture and hold accountable those responsible, especially at the highest levels."

Fortunately, even when the U.S. government's foreign policies are unattractive to others, our culture and our open political processes can produce a "meta" form of soft power -- winning grudging admiration for our freedoms at the same time that our policies are unpopular. After all, anti-American protests were rampant around the world during the Vietnam War, but the protesters did not sing "The Internationale"; they sang the American civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome." Today, the fact that America remains democratic and self-critical, that its free press exposes governmental flaws and that the legislative and judicial branches can act against the executive, means that anti-American critics of U.S. foreign policies can still feel a residual attraction to our society. As Sweig puts it, "The best antidote to Anti-America may well come not from how we fight (or prevent) the next war but from the degree to which we keep intact the social contract and international appeal of American society." She also urges Washington to adopt a changed foreign policy style that develops empathy for foreign cultures, practices better manners and pays more attention to rules and fairness. Anti-Americanism will not go away, but it need not dominate the 21st century if Americans follow the advice of this well-reasoned book.
Moderates and conservatives skeptical of the wartime proliferation of anti-U.S. treatises will find themselves falling unexpectedly in love with Julia Sweig's brilliant and provocative work, "Friendly Fire." This is the best nonfiction book I've read this year.
Though the author is probably somewhere on the center-left, "Friendly Fire" is no knee-jerk, know-nothing, America-bashing critique. Sweig provides a trenchant and thoughtful analysis of other nations' growing antipathy to American foreign policy, completely without any ax to grind.
Sweig's region-by-region analysis is practically a blueprint for how to get American foreign policy back on track while at the same time, keeping American interests in mind.
Sweig offers the kind of proscriptive analysis too seldom found in the cheap, Michael Moore-style lefty critiques. She not only identifies the problems in U.S. foreign policy, she also offers solutions, including many that defy easy ideological categorization.
As brilliant as this book is, Sweig's writing style is conversational and breezy - a sheer delight. "Friendly Fire" combines the intellectual heft of a Pulitzer Prize-winner with the easy-to-read narrative of a book that can remain atop the best seller list for a year.

America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked (Paperback)
by Andrew Kohut (Author), Bruce Stokes (Author)
# Paperback: 288 pages
# Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (May 1, 2007)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0805083057
# ISBN-13: 978-0805083057

It has become a media axiom that anti-Americanism is on the rise around the world, and though the foreign policies of George W. Bush are often cited as a motivating factor, it seems reasonable that there must be more to the animosity than one president's actions. Kohut, the director of the Pew Research Center, teams up with NPR commentator Stokes to present the results of an extensive Pew survey that polled more than 91,000 people in 50 nations to come up with an explanation that, when you strip away the extensive charts and tables, boils down to this: they hate us because we're different. But, Kohut and Stokes suggest, we're also misunderstood. People in other nations believe that America's unilateralism is motivated by hyperintense nationalism and religiosity, but polling data suggests most Americans don't feel that way—far from wanting to create a global empire, they're not even enthusiastic about bringing democracy to other nations. Though detailed, the survey results contain few real surprises, and the approach, which borders on wonkish, may have trouble finding its way to a general audience. (May 9)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* More than 70 percent of non-Americans think the world would be better off if there were another superpower to keep the U.S. in check. The Pew Research Center lends its reputation for nonpartisanship to the largest survey of world opinion aimed at learning why Americans have become so disliked abroad. Pew director Kohut and international economist Stokes examine the opinions of 91,000 respondents in 50 nations to explore the image change of the U.S. from champion of freedom and land of opportunity to world bully and exploiter. Kohut and Stokes examine the notion of American exceptionalism that has dominated world opinion since Alexis de Tocqueville and more current concerns about President Bush's unilateral approach in the war on terrorism since 9/11. They explore differences in American values versus those of other nations, how globalization affects concerns about the effect of American culture and policy on other nations, and what growing worldwide disapproval and even fear of the U.S. holds for the future. Not merely a dry, statistical account but a fascinating--and troubling--look at how the rest of the world views us.

We cannot be secure without the respect and understanding of others. One approach to falling support for America is to see the problem as a giant misunderstanding ("if they only knew we are generally religious, love our children, and have high-minded goals"), and another is to blame the global media for distorting and misreporting news about the U.S. A third approach, much more likely to lead to improvement, is based on objective analyses of what caused people overseas to form the positions that they have, and to ask what it might take to soften them. The Pew Research Center undertook a series of global opinion surveys from '02-'05 involving 91,000+ people in 50 nations to discover how the world views America and its people.

Allied nations, post Cold-War, now feel able to act independently of U.S. wishes. One startling conclusion is that over 70% of non-Americans believe the world would be improved if the U.S. faced a rival military power. Bush's early policy decisions (eg. backing away from the Kyoto treaty, other unilateral approaches) were unpopular abroad prior to 9/11. His re-election in '04 broadened dislike of American policies (already at a low point due to the Iraq invasion) to include Americans themselves.

Another interesting finding was that the proportion of religious belief in America (about 94%) is much higher than in Europe (eg. 50% in Germany), and closer to that in the Middle East. A related finding is that white evangelicals (ESPECIALLY conservatives) are much more pro-Israel than Americans as a whole!)

Other findings about Americans include the result that only about 1 in 4 Americans felt increased trade has been very good for the U.S. and/or themselves, though other studies in the book have reported much more positive findings. However, its report that most Americans are supportive of immigration from Mexico is STRONGLY at odds with most other reports. Thus, one starts to wonder how accurate polling is overall.

[svinayak]

Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think
by John L. Esposito (Author), Dalia Mogahed (Author)

# Hardcover: 230 pages
# Publisher: Gallup Press (February 25, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1595620176
# ISBN-13: 978-1595620170

In a post-9/11 world, many Americans conflate the mainstream Muslim majority with the beliefs and actions of an extremist minority. But what do the world’s Muslims think about the West, or about democracy, or about extremism itself? Who Speaks for Islam? spotlights this silenced majority. The book is the product of a mammoth six-year study in which the Gallup Organization conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations — urban and rural, young and old, men and women, educated and illiterate. It asks the questions everyone is curious about: Why is the Muslim world so anti-American? Who are the extremists? Is democracy something Muslims really want? What do Muslim women want? The answers to these and other pertinent, provocative questions are provided not by experts, extremists, or talking heads, but by empirical evidence — the voices of a billion Muslims.


From the Publisher
In the wake of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, U.S. public officials seemed to have no idea whether or not many Muslims supported the bombings. This troubled Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton, who felt that "no one in Washington had any idea what 1.3 billion Muslims were thinking, and yet we were working on intricate strategies that were going to change the world for all time." Clifton commissioned his company to undertake the enormous job.

The result is Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, based on six years of research and more than 50,000 interviews representing 1.3 billion Muslims who reside in more than 35 nations that are predominantly Muslim or have sizable Muslim populations. Representing more than 90% of the world's Muslim community, it makes this poll the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind.

What the data reveal and the authors illuminate may surprise you:

* Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustifiable.
* Large majorities of Muslims would guarantee free speech if it were up to them to write a new constitution AND they say religious leaders should have no direct role in drafting that constitution.
* Muslims around the world say that what they LEAST admire about the West is its perceived moral decay and breakdown of traditional values -- the same answers that Americans themselves give when asked this question.
* When asked about their dreams for the future, Muslims say they want better jobs and security, not conflict and violence.
* Muslims say the most important thing Westerners can do to improve relations with their societies is to change their negative views toward Muslims and respect Islam.

The research suggests that conflict between Muslims and the West is NOT inevitable and, in fact, is more about policy than principles. "However," caution Esposito and Mogahed, "until and unless decision makers listen directly to the people and gain an accurate understanding of this conflict, extremists on all sides will continue to gain ground."

Who Speaks for Islam? is an important book that challenges conventional wisdom and sheds greater light on what motivates Muslims worldwide. It is a must-read for anyone committed to creating peace and security in our lifetime.

Everybody may have a right to his or her own opinion, but this doesn't mean that all opinions are equally right. What separates mere opinion from reasoned judgment, at least when it comes to empirical claims, is a hard and judicious analysis of available data. The more heated the topic under discussion, the more important it is to have facts that back up positions. Otherwise, those who are most passionate, but not necessarily most informed, can carry the day.

Since at least 9/11, American pundits and people in the street (and a President) have made lots of claims about Islam. Everyone who reads the papers or watches television can recite them by heart: Muslims hate Americans because of our freedoms. Muslims despise democracy. Muslims are out to colonize Europe. The more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he or she is to become a terrorist. Muslims want theocratic governments. There's an inevitable and insoluble culture clash between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. And on and on it goes.

The extraordinary value of Who Speaks for Islam? is that the authors, John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed appeal to hard data from the Gallup World Poll (GWP) to examine these and other common U.S. opinions about Muslims. For six years, GWP interviewed tens of thousands of Muslims in over 35 nations, collecting a sample that represented 90% of the world's Muslim population (1.3 billion). The results--the hard data--are not just surprising. They're shocking. They suggest that almost every single thing that Americans think we know about Islam and Muslims are distortions. As such, Who Speaks for Islam? is a bracing reality check that, if read by enough of us, can change minds and policies.

Let me just mention two sets of data that go counter to two popular opinions about Islam. One has to do with sharia and the other with freedom of speech (and civil liberties in general).

The U.S. perception is that Muslims want to establish legal systems based exclusively on harsh sharia, or religious laws. But in fact, polled Muslims indicate something different. In most countries, only a minority of respondants want Sharia as the only source of law. In only 5 countries--Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh--do respondants want Sharia as the only source of law. Most respondants think that an ideal legal system is based in part but not exclusively on Sharia. Ironically, a 2006 survey revealed that a full 46% of Americans think the Bible should a "a source," and 9% think it should be the "only" source, of legislation. 42% of Americans think religious leaders should be directly involved in writing laws, and 55% think the idea is awful--almost exactly the same figures about Muslim religious leaders and the law that come out of Iran (pp. 48-49).

Another common assumption is that Muslims dislike free speech, and the worldwide protests against the now infamous Danish cartoons of Mohammed are frequently cited as evidence. But vast numbers of polled Muslims insist that they admire many Western civil liberties. Their resentment against the U.S. isn't its freedoms so much as what they perceive as "the West's hatred and denigration of Islam; the Western belief that Arabs and Muslims are inferior; and their fear of Western intervention, domination, or occupation" (p. 141). So what drove the protests against the Danish cartoons for most Muslims wasn't a hatred of freedom of speech, but shock at what was perceived as disrespect of a religious figure venerated by Muslims. Interestingly, many non-Muslims agree that freedom of speech should be limited when it comes to ridiculing religious figures or using racist slurs. 57% of (non-Muslim) British and 45% of (non-Muslim) French thought the Danish cartoons shouldn't be protected by freedom of speech. Similarly, more than 75% of both populations would forbid cartoons making light of the Holocaust, and 86% of both would disallow racist cartoons (pp. 142-145). Once again, things just aren't as simple as the one-liner "Muslims are against freedom of speech" makes them out to be.

Are there genuine differences between Muslims and non-Muslims? Of course there are. But understanding wherein real differences as opposed to imaginary ones lie is the first step toward genuine dialogue. Who Speaks for Islam? paves the way for that initial step. Highly, urgently, recommended.


It is difficult nowadays to get an objective, nuanced opinion on Islam, neither flattering nor biased against it. If I were to recommend a way to try and achieve that, I would suggest reading several good books on the matter, including this among them.

After reading Mr. Kerry Walters' excellent review, I will only add that often is unclear to me whether the authors are presenting the results of the Gallup study or their own opinion. Said results are the most interesting matter that lead me to buy the book because Gallup shows the point of view of 1.3 billion muslim people; and even though I agree with the authors plenty of times, theirs is only the opinion of two persons [who are clearly well informed, balanced, scholarly... but only two, after all].

In any event, I recommend it, my rating being between 5 (content) and 3 (pleasure, sometimes falling to 2, sometimes raising to 4).

Besides, I would also recommend the following books [as Khaled M. Abou El Fadl -scholar trained in both Islamic and Western law- says, non-muslims "first and foremost [are to] learn and understand, because nothing helps the puritans' cause as much as Western ignorance, prejudice and hate"]:

A) ASSESSMENTS OF ISLAM: 1) The best, impartial, wise: "Islam. History, present, future" by Hans Küng . 2) Moderate Islam at its best: "The Great Theft : Wrestling Islam from the Extremists" by Khaled M. Abou El Fadl; 3) Harsh but well argued: "Muslims in the West: Redefining the Separation of Church & State" by Sami Awad Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh; and 4) Autobiography of a courageous woman: "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is a controversial thinker with a very interesting life.

HISTORY: 5) General: "The Venture of Islam", by Marshall G. S. Hodgson (nowadays a classic included in any bibliography on Islam); 6) Turks: "The Turks in World History" by Carter Vaughn Findley; 7) Political theory: "God's Rule : Government and Islam" by Patricia Crone; and Jihad: "Understanding Jihad" by David Cook.

[sanjaychoudhry]

[quote]INDIA’S BISMARCK — Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel: Balraj Krishna; Indus Source Books, P.O. Box 6194, Malabar Hill PO, Mumbai-400006. Rs. 300.

Variously hailed as the Iron Man of India, Mahatma’s Muscle Man, Lenin of Bardoli, Chanakya-cum-Bismarck and saviour and architect of New India, Sardar Patel was a robust statesman in the Gandhi-Nehru-Patel triumvirate, which was responsible for shaping India’s destiny during the freedom struggle. Immediately after Independence, Patel as Deputy Prime Minister of India adroitly dealt with the bewildering problem of integrating into the Indian Union 560 odd princely states.

This book is not exactly yet another biography of Patel inasmuch as the author, a seasoned journalist, has artfully re-aligned the known (and some unknown) facts on the role of the Sardar before and after Independence, drawing largely on reports appearing in Indian and foreign press. More than that, he has conversed and corresponded with select top-ranking ex-bureaucrats and army chiefs to flash new light on the role of Patel in post-independent India.

Partition

Patel’s tactful but firm dealings with the revolt of Travancore and Hyderabad states and his brush with the rulers of Jodhpur, Kathiawar, Bhopal and Junagadh finally and swiftly demolishing the princely order are dealt with in detail.

Immediately on receiving Prime Minister Nehru’s letter of December 23, 1947 informing Patel of his decision to take Kashmir from Patel’s charge to place it under the charge of Gopalaswamy Ayyangar, an outraged Patel forthwith penned his letter of resignation as a member of the government. But, on Gandhiji’s intervention, the letter remained undelivered.

According to H. V. Kamath’s memoirs quoted by the author, Patel once told Kamath that “if Jawaharlal Nehru and Gopalaswamy had not made Kashmir their close preserve, separating Kashmir from my portfolio of Home and States, I would have tackled the problem as purposefully as I had already done in Hyderabad.â€

[svinayak]

The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash
by Charles R. Morris (Author)

# Hardcover: 224 pages
# Publisher: PublicAffairs (March 3, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1586485636
# ISBN-13: 978-1586485634

We are living in the most reckless financial environment in recent history. Arcane credit derivative bets are now well into the tens of trillions. According to Charles R. Morris, the astronomical leverage at investment banks and their hedge fund and private equity clients virtually guarantees massive disruption in global markets. The crash, when it comes, will have no firebreaks. A quarter century of free-market zealotry that extolled asset stripping, abusive lending, and hedge fund secrecy will come crashing down with it.

The Trillion Dollar Meltdown explains how we got here, and what is about to happen. After the crash our priorities will be quite different. But things are likely to get worse before they better. Whether you are an active investor, a homeowner, or a contributor to your 401(k) plan, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown will be indispensable to understanding the gross excess that has put the world economy on the brink—and what the new landscape will look like.


This is a great book for those of you like me who are not in the financial services industry but who want to understand why our economy is melting down as we speak. It will also help you understand why this upcoming election is so important: The author describes the seismic ideological shifts over the last 40 years, from the Liberal/Keynsian era that imploded in the late 70s, to the current dying embers of the Chicago-School free market ideology that has held sway from Reagan up to the present moment. The author believes it is time once again for the pendulum to swing in the direction of more activist, socially conscious government intervention. He is not a liberal ideologue but a former banker who comes to his conclusions based on objectivity, knowledge, and lucid thought. The integrity of his thinking shines through every page. This is not always an easy book to read; due to the subject matter it is rife with all sorts of financial industry acronyms and terms like "tranch" and "quant" and "put", but don't let that throw you. Just keep reading with the big picture in mind and it will all come together in the end. It's well worth the effort!

There are three books that shed light on today's worldwide financial crisis. Second and third are Morris and Soros (2008), the first and most basic is the one that I reviewed last year: Eichengreen's `Globalizing Capital'. The review can be found on the econophysics web page or on amazon.de.

Eichengreen presents the history of the Dollar from the gold standard until convertibility was cancelled in 1971, and from then from the early years of deregulation through 1995. Specific details of recent financial history under deregulation, which we date from 1971, are also usefully provided in Lewis' `Liars Poker' and Dunbar's `Inventing Money'. We can date the use of the Dollar as international default reserve currency since 1945, while the inflation of the worldwide credit bubble dates exactly from 1971. Morris discusses the necessary background history in summarized form, with appropriate emphasis on the onset of deregulation (1971) to the present era of worldwide financial instability.

Morris begins with the Reagan era of easy credit, lowered taxes for the wealthy, and big budget busting, and the systematic deletion of financial rules that had been set up under FDR as a result of the depression (Eichengreen correctly presents the Great Depression as a liquidity crisis that could have been avoided, we've had no depression since that time because central banks have provided adequate liquidity in financial crises--this will not likely be possible in the future due to the enormity of unregulated 'shadow banking'). Morris notes that the exercise of judgment in policy making was dropped when politicians shared the illusion of academic economists that, under the marriage of (neo-classical) economics with high-powered math, economics had become a science. Lucas' famous laissez faire policy critique represents the epitome of that illusion. The Chicago School of Economic ideology is rightly blamed by Morris for the present unstable fruits of deregulation and the corresponding loss of manufacturing capacity in the U.S.

Morris descusses various synthetic option products for the reader, especially collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), created in 1983 in era of the collapse of savings & loans in the U.S. as a result of splitting mortgages into derivatives (see also Lewis). CDOs, credit default swaps, and other derivatives that were useful in expanding the bubble are also described. One is the SIV (structured investment vehicle), which has been extremely useful in getting credit created by mortgages off the balance sheets of banks. The money supply is discussed by neither Morris nor Soros, but the Dollar M2 is roughly $7 trillion, M3 is about twice that. M2 describes all money (credit is counted as money) under the control of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. M3 includes `Eurodollars', money outside the U.S. that's used to create credit in, say, China, under the multiplier rules of Chinese banks. M3 includes all 'on balance sheet' Dollars in the world. To understand where we stand, the reader must know about 'shadow banking', also mentioned by Morris with SIVs as the prime vehicle for that form of uncontrolled money creation. Shadow banking, so far as I've managed to understand it, includes credit that is at least triple the amount of M3. This means that the U.S. is in a worse position financially than in the 19th century before the Federal Government outlawed currency printing by commercial banks. In a word, and as Morris argues convincingly, financial regulations are absolutely necessary, the free market/free trade binge is over, the Dollar cannot be salvaged under current economic and political policy. I read on the web that total Dollar mortgages are on the order of magnitude of M2-M3, meaning that mortgages are largely an unregulated form of money creation today (due to derivatives and shadow banking). The world was quite different before the Reagan-Thatcher-Friedman ideology took hold only a short 27 years ago.


While I think Kevin Phillips BAD MONEY is a very important book and well worth reading, Morris' THE TRILLION DOLLAR MELTDOW is, in some important respects, even better. Both are well qualified observers. Phillips as a brilliant, fiercely independent "tell it like it is" author of popular political and economics texts, and Morris, internationally respected ex-banker and financial analyst

The thesis of MELTDOWN is simple. The same "free market" philosophy that effected the economic recovery and expansion of the U.S. in the 1980s and early 1990's, has now brought the U.S. economy and American society almost to ruin. In other words, the economic pendulum has swung too far in one (free market) direction and there now needs to be a return to the other direction to bring things back into balance.

The "socialization of risk", in which big money was made by the sale and trading of bogus investment instruments that had to inevitably crash, at which point the "risk" or huge losses were simply handed off to taxpayers.

U.S. health care, once the envy of the world, under "free market medicine" remains the most expensive medical care in the world while one of the lowest ranked in safety and efficacy, and a single improvement that would improve the quality of U.S. medical care, and which is already in place in nearly every other industrial society, - computerization of medical records - has not been started here.

Morris talks about the free marketers' campaign to abolish social security by false and misleading information about what is really a very small actuarial problem that can be solved quite easily. (Phillips, to his credit, describes in detail how Greenspan and company quietly replaced the pre-1990 CPI, on which social security COLAs are based, with a bogus CPI that understates the true inflation rate by half. Wait until America's millions of retirees realize that they have been short changed billions of dollars!)

While both Phillips and Morris correctly point out how the student loan program has enriched lenders while impoverishing students, neither also identifies the role of the colleges and universities in "pimping" for this program. As Marty Nemko, careers columnist and author of the original, COOL CAREERS FOR DUMMIES, says "The problem is that the colleges and their lobbyists manipulate legislators into increasing govt-funded financial aid, which merely allows the colleges to raise their prices more i.e. the taxpayers are lining the colleges' pockets while providing the student borrowers with a TERRIBLE education."

Both Phillips and Morris however, agree with Warren Buffett (whom both frequently quote), that we are now in the early stage of a long and severe economic downturn and interestingly, although both theses books were published in late 2007, each contains a forecast of things to come (Morris' forecast is much more detailed) that when read today is not only nearly 100% accurate but which, when it is not, it is because they have actually understated the severity of the problem. For example, his "worst scenario" for housing is a 30% decline, which has already been passed by, and with no "bottom" in sight for the collapse of housing prices.

Anyone who has a serious interest in both the future of the American economy, and the improvement of American society, will enjoy this book and the crisp often witty manner in which it describes the rise and fall of "free market economics" in the U.S. over the past 25 years.

he explains the economic effects of shifting demographics, such is the case with the baby boomer's down trend effect on wages in the 70's, due to the high percentage of untrained eighteen to twenty four year olds entering the job market and an expensive capital which in turn reduced investment. It fails to take into account, that in the 90's United States had one of the biggest waves of legal immigration of the century. On average one million immigrants were coming to US every year and most of them in their early twenties. A Combination of cheap labor and capital along with the financial scenario described in this book, created the perfect financial storm. In the 90's, legal immigrants were a major factor in real estate appreciation, due to high demand. In fact, this scenario was remarkable similar in all countries with high real estate appreciation; USA, UK, Spain, France.

In this decade the sub prime boom and the lowering of loan requirements created the opportunity for mortgage brokers and credit cards companies to target a highly profitable new market; the undocumented immigrants. The collapse of the mortgage hedge funds in mid 2007 was expanded by the failure of passing an immigration reform a month earlier. This post it is not about an immigration reform, I just want to point out that free markets as well as democracy works better if all players involved have as much information as possible.

Allowing a free hand to the financial sector based in the free market theory and not creating checks and balances for it, was a major failure of the Federal Reserve System. However, another failure was to neglect an economic factor due to a myopic hypothesis that unskilled individuals have only a down trend effect in the economy.

[Murugan]

Cold Steel: LAKSHMI MITTAL AND THE TAKEOVER THAT DEFINED AN ERA


by Tim Bouquet and Byron Ousey

This is the story of the defining battle of globalisation between Mittal and Arcelor, one an NRI who has built up a fortune in making steel around the world and the other an established European steel company with its headquarters in Luxembourg and operations across France and Spain. Over the first six months of 2006, the Mittal attempt to buy Arcelor by appealing to shareholders over the heads of an old-fashioned and smug board of directors was the stuff of headlines in financial media worldwide.

What should have been a boring technical story on the back pages of the Financial Times became front page news as the bid was seen not just as a business deal but a civilisational battle between Old Europe, cultured and haughty, and a family of intrepid Indians.
The CEO of Arcelor, Guy Dolle, appears as the villain in this story, stumbling unthinkingly into racist jibes about the Mittals’ monnaie de singe—monkey money, literally, but funny money is what he meant. It gets worse as politicians in France, Luxembourg and Belgium begin to take protectionist steps to keep Arcelor European.




Like Batman and Robin, Lakshmi and Aditya Mittal emerge as a great team— anticipating rivals’ moves and outsmarting them.


This, even though Mittal’s company was registered in the Netherlands and he did all his business outside India. There are many low tricks to stop hostile bids and this book offers a textbook of them. Eventually Mittal won fair and square because shareholders saw through the outdated corporatist


nonsense of the European model and chose the enterprising dynamic globaliser.
India also put its oar into the battle on Mittal’s side. I thought at that time that this compromised Mittal since he was playing the bid as a cosmopolitan player and not as a desi. This book tells how President Chirac’s team advises Mittal not to attend a lunch that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is giving for Chirac, to which he had invited Mittal, just to avoid any bad vibes in the French media. Lakshmi Mittal and his son Aditya emerge as a fantastic team, like Batman and Robin, overcoming all odds, anticipating their rival’s each move and outsmarting them. They put together a winning team of lawyers and bankers and PR people from several countries—as this is of all such bids the truly global battle. So does Arcelor. They also involve a Russian company, Severstal, very much a post-Gorbachov phenomenon. They both fight dirty: spying, throwing spanners in the works, spreading misinformation. The money spent is like "a lawyer’s wet dream".

We also see that in this world of global finance there are strong national regulatory frameworks, each different from the other with the bidder having to meet the legal requirements of each. Regulators referee the battle and see that the rules are transparent. We have miles to go before a single global economy emerges with a single law regulating business around the world. But each country knows that it pays to be liberal. Even the host country, Luxembourg, realises that if they skew the outcome in favour of Arcelor they will lose a lot of business settled there thanks to its liberal laws.

The book is written in the breathless style of Time magazine circa 1980s. Far too much detail is thrown in. Every banker, lawyer, politician and regulator is described in the standard cliche of tall, dark and handsome, wearing Gucci shoes and Armani shirts, smoking Havana cigars etc which gets in the way of the story. The authors could have written a straight story but instead have tried to make it into a piece of fiction. This adds about one-third more pages to the book which a good editor could have cut out. After all that fuss over the names, the appendix listing them is incomplete—missing out Krupp-Thyssen names—and the index is no help in tracing the names and code names which abound.

In the end this is a story of how capitalism is no country’s monopoly.No culture or religion is a better preparation than any other. What makes for success is hard work, an ability for risk-taking and playing a strategic game when you are up against the best. Lakshmi Mittal shows that he has all that and more. He is not a stoic who would take a defeat philosophically. Along with his son Aditya he has imbibed all the black arts of doing business around the world but remained true to his ethics.

[svinayak]

Futurecast: How Superpowers, Populations, and Globalization Will Change the Way You Live and Work
by Robert J. Shapiro (Author)

# Hardcover: 368 pages
# Publisher: St. Martin's Press (April 1, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0312352425
# ISBN-13: 978-0312352424

What will life be like in America, Europe, Japan or China in the year 2020?

As everyone’s lives across the world are become increasingly interconnected by globalization and new technologies quicken the pace of everything, the answer to that question depends on the fate and paths of the world’s major nations. In Futurecast, Robert Shapiro, former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce and Chairman/Co-founder of Sonecon, looks into the future to tell us what our world will over the next dozen years. Though that time span seems brief, Shapiro foresees monumental changes caused by three historic new forces—globalization, the aging of societies, and the rise of America as a sole superpower with no near peer— will determine the paths of nations and the lives of countless millions. What jobs will there be for you and your children? What will happen to your health care? How safe will you be at home or abroad? Answers to these questions will depend, even more than today, on where you live in the world:

• Even as China expands its military and its economy, America will be the world’s sole superpower for at least the next generation, and continue to lead efforts to preserve global security and stability.

• The U.S. and China will be the world’s two indispensable economies, dominating the course of globalization.

• Globalization will continue to shift most heavy manufacturing and millions of high-end service jobs from advanced countries like the US, to China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Romania, Turkey and other developing nations.

• Europe’s major nations and Japan will face the prospect of genuine economic decline and critical problems in their retirement pension systems, moving further towards the periphery of global economic and geopolitical power.

• Every major country—the U.S., Europe, Japan, China—will face critical problems with their health care systems, and the entire world will face a crisis over energy and climate change.

If one adds the wildcard of possible, catastrophic terrorist attacks to this mix, the period between now and 2020 will be as challenging as any in modern times. Taking these deep global developments into account when planning for the future isa necessity. Robert Shapiro’s clear-eyed Futurecast is the knowledge portfolio you need to prepare for the years to come.


Robert Shapiro, former Clinton Administration Under Secretary of Commerce presents his vision of the world in the near future. In his view, there are three important factors that will have an impact on the shape of the new world: globalization, demographics and the superpowers. None of this is surprising and most of the people agree with this view. His presentation is provocative though, and the simple review of facts that occurred in the recent past and their extension into the near future is challenging the mindset that most of us have. The world is fast evolving and we have to adapt.

It is difficult to grasp the massive dislocation brought to us by globalisation when you have countries like China and India entering the world stage changing completely the job market everywhere. In his view America will remain a superpower, but the rules are different. Robert focuses on US, China, Japan and Europe, with occasional touch on Ireland, UK, France, Germany, Italy and South Corea. The book has a lot of factual information and it contains, based on that information, predictions on future trends that are likely to occur until 2020. Suprisingly, there is not much about India, Canada and Australia (the last two countries have massive natural resources that have a key strategic importance in the evolution of global balance of power).

The main factors that Robert predicts will have a significant influence in the evolution of world order are demographic, economic and political. The demographic factors are staggering. For instance China will have by 2020 over 170 million people over 60. Or consider the fact that in Europe and Japan the elderly will represent over 50% of the working-age population. These developments will have impact on productivity, economic growth, social system, tax and welfare in general.

The story of China is interesting. The accelerated development is impressive, but there are huge risks lurking in the background. The eventuation of any of these risks has implications for the rest of the world. Robert Shapiro explains very well the connection between China and US as competitors fighting for leadership and partners sharing common interests.

Of course there are unanswered questions, but who can pretend or demand that they should or could be answered? This is one of those books that make people debate forever, and that is good. The book is a very interesting read.

Overall, the author does a good job of describing the
megatrends he sees in our future. For instance,
globalization will shift labor intensive jobs to
areas of the world where labor costs are cheaper.
The USA and China will emerge as superpowers and
dominate globalization. As the number of working people
go down- the quality of life goes down and the various
social programs will be under funding strains as in
Europe.

The author sees overall challenges in health care,
globalization and climate change. The traditional
economies will experience slower growth with higher
taxes, more elderly and a shrinking labor force.
Globalization also encourages costly new medical
procedures due to technological improvements.
The government must find ways to control costs in
this area by merging partnerships with industry.

The USA will build and maintain global information
networks. This is our area of strength. The USA
labor force will grow decently over the next few
decades due to the current stock of immigration.
The new immigrants are needed to replace the labor
pool of retiring baby boomers. There will be no
baby boom in Sub Sahara Africa and Russia. These
countries may suffer for the lack of a labor pool.
In summary, Americans have produced more children
than Europeans or the Japanese. The price of the
baby bust is the end of strong growth in Europe
and Japan according to the author.

China must build its infrastructure and manage the
coastal information technologies with the needs of
inland China. Outsourcing does cause the loss of
some jobs; however, there is a counterbalance to
increments in productivity. I happen to believe that
outsourcing is not a panacea or cure-all for a
number of reasons. i.e. enforcement of corporate
standards is more difficult; Random Acts of G-d
can obliterate operations overnight etc.

The author poses the question concerning oil demand
and prices. Ultimately, oil prices will rise and
stabilize at various equilibrium levels. The new
technological advances may serve to keep oil prices
in check , if there is a serious effort to seek
new oil sources and build cars that are energy efficient.

The book provides a serious perspective on the
challenge we face in the future. Policymakers in
Washington, DC and elsewhere should take note !

[svinayak]

Empire of Lies: The Truth About China in the Twenty-First Century
by Guy Sorman (Author)

# Hardcover: 325 pages
# Publisher: Encounter Books; American Ed edition (April 25, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1594032165
# ISBN-13: 978-1594032165

Guy Sorman gives a human face to brutal oppression in today's China. He introduces us to the daily suffering of many individual human lives: students thrown into exile for signing their names to political leaflets, pregnant women beaten for being pregnant without the authorization of the state, peasant families enduring the long, slow sufferings of AIDS brought to them by unsanitary blood transfusions in public clinics. Sorman has long been a promoter of a realistic form of democracy in China and of a "barefoot capitalism" that would begin to diminish the huge number of those who suffer.

Product Description
Before the totalitarian reign of Mao Zedong and his immediate successors, never in human history had an entire nation been under such intense surveillance. The Chinese not only had to speak alike; they had to think alike. Traveling to China regularly since 1967, and spending all of 2005 and 2006 there, Guy Sorman saw it all, and in this jaw-dropping book, he documents the horrifying stories of China through the 21st century. He shows how the Party's primary concern is not improving the lives of the downtrodden; it seeks power more than it seeks social development. It expends extraordinary energy in suppressing Chinese freedoms-the media operate under suffocating censorship, and political opposition can result in expulsion or prison-even as it tries to seduce the West, which has conferred greater legitimacy on it than do the Chinese themselves.

[svinayak]

White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement
by Allan J. Lichtman (Author)

# Hardcover: 560 pages
# Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press (June 1, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0871139847
# ISBN-13: 978-0871139849

Spanning nearly one hundred years of American political history, and abounding with outsize characters--from Lindbergh to Goldwater to Gingrich to Abramoff--White Protestant Nation offers a penetrating look at the origins, evolution, and triumph (at times) of modern conservatism. Lichtman is both a professor of political history at American University and a veteran journalist, and after ten years of prodigious research, he has produced what may be the definitive history of the modern conservative movement in America. He brings to life a gallery of dynamic right-wing personalities, from luminaries such as Strom Thurmond, Phyllis Schlafly, and Bill Kristol to indispensable inside operators like financiers Frank Gannett and J. Howard Pew. He explodes the conventional wisdom that modern conservative politics began with Goldwater and instead traces the roots of today’s movement to the 1920s. And he lays bare the tactics that conservatives have used for generations to put their slant on policy and culture; to choke the growth of the liberal state; and to build the most powerful media, fundraising, and intellectual network in the history of representative government. White Protestant Nation is entertaining, provocative, enlightening, and essential reading for anyone who cares about modern American politics and its history.

Allan Lichtman, author of "Keys to the White House" (an awesome read), has documented the history of the conservative movement since World War I in "White Protestant Nation". Most people believe that modern-day conservatism began in the 1950s with William F. Buckley, but Lichtman posits that the conservative movement, guided by a firm belief in Christianity and private enterprise, arose in the 1920s in response to the upheavals of the World War I years and attempted to ensure that America remained a white, Protestant nation.

The Right was indeed against civil rights in the early decades of the movement. Several GOP candidates backed by the Klan won gubernatorial elections in the 1920s, and the infamous editorials that National Review published in its first few years evince that segregation was supported by even the responsible Right in the 1950s. Today, however, the Right is far more likely than the Left is to follow Martin Luther King's standard of judging a person by the content of his character rather than by the color of his skin. Clarence Thomas and Bobby Jindal (neither white, neither Protestant) are two of the people in public life that many conservatives most admire today. Modern-day liberals are far more obsessed by racial (and gender) issues than conservatives are, as evidenced by the more-victim-than-thou sweepstakes that was the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination process.

Lichtman rightly notes that the conservative movement opposes practices such as abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity, *****, and easy divorce, and shows that Protestants and Catholics have worked together in recent decades against these practices. Such opposition is not merely Christian--Jews and Muslims, as well as many who profess no religious belief, oppose these practices as well. Even a liberal like Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a well-known prophet concerning the ill effects of illegitimacy on society.

This book is encyclopedic in its coverage of every right-of-center organization worth knowing about since the Twenties, and Lichtman skillfully weaves descriptions of these organizations around a solid account of American political history since WWI. It is probably best that a prospective reader already have a good working knowledge of American history and politics of the last 90 years before trying to tackle this book--those without that kind of knowledge base may become discouraged while reading a book as intensely detailed as this one is.

This book, though thought-provoking and worthwhile, is written with somewhat of a liberal bias. For example, Lichtman introduces the Strategic Defense Initiative and then refers to it as "Star Wars" instead of "SDI" throughout the rest of the book. And by juxtaposing a paragraph on Timothy McVeigh immediately following a sentence on Rush Limbaugh, Lichtman seems to advance the old canard that talk radio caused McVeigh's actions. There are many talk radio hosts (Hannity, Beck, Ingraham, Levin, Savage, Boortz, Bennett, Gallagher, Prager, Medved, Hewitt, Reagan) heard today that were not widely heard in the mid-1990s. If the constellation of nationally syndicated talk radio hosts has expanded exponentially since 2000, and the number of McVeighs has not, that strongly suggests that McVeigh was a lone nut and not the result of talk radio.

Lichtman closes with analysis of the conservative movement's future. He notes that there are many contradictions between factions of the Right, such as the schism between moral reformers and business. How these debates are resolved will determine whether the conservative movement can advance its agenda and provide the traditional morality and greater economic freedom cherished, not just by white Protestants, but also by millions of other Americans of all races and faiths.

[svinayak]

The War for Wealth: The True Story of Globalization, or Why the Flat World is Broken
by Gabor Steingart (Author)


# Hardcover: 304 pages
# Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (April 4, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0071545964
# ISBN-13: 978-0071545969
[quote]

Globalization. The Flat World. Outsourcing. Free Trade.

Each of these phrases is a flashpoint in one of the most heated debates of our lifetime: Is globalization a force for good, or is it a policy that is sure to destroy the economic foundation of the United States and Europe while exporting our wealth and prosperity overseas?

In The War for Wealth, leading intellectual and agenda-setting journalist Gabor Steingart examines how globalization has affected the state of the world's economy and returns with a bleak outlook for the West: our prosperity and wealth are disappearing faster than ever, and with it our political power and our long-held democratic ideals. But all is not lost; we can still stem the flow of capital and jobs and once again restore the West to its respected position of global leader in economics and politics.

In this eye-opening and dramatic account, Steingart lays out the three potential scenarios the world faces - a “shock scenarioâ€

[svinayak]

Economic Facts and Fallacies
by Thomas Sowell (Author)

# Hardcover: 272 pages
# Publisher: Basic Books (December 31, 2007)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0465003494
# ISBN-13: 978-0465003495

Economic Facts and Fallacies exposes some of the most popular fallacies about economic issues-and does so in a lively manner and without requiring any prior knowledge of economics by the reader. These include many beliefs widely disseminated in the media and by politicians, such as mistaken ideas about urban problems, income differences, male-female economic differences, as well as economics fallacies about academia, about race, and about Third World countries. One of the themes of Economic Facts and Fallacies is that fallacies are not simply crazy ideas but in fact have a certain plausibility that gives them their staying power-and makes careful examination of their flaws both necessary and important, as well as sometimes humorous. Written in the easy-to-follow style of the author’s Basic Economics, this latest book is able to go into greater depth, with real world examples, on specific issues.


About the Author
Thomas Sowell has taught economics at a number of colleges and universities, including Cornell, University of California Los Angeles, and Amherst. He has published both scholarly and popular articles and books on economics, and is currently a scholar in residence at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

review of Thomas Sowell's Economic Facts and Fallacies with two semi-personal accounts. First, many years ago my young wife and I took the subway to Boston Common to a Fair Play for Cuba demonstration (this was before we drove Castro into the USSR's arms with a trade embargo and other hostilities). Pete Seeger sang a Spanish Civil War freedom song, and when he was done, he said "We might have lost the war, but we had all the good songs." The crowd laughed, but I was dumb-struck. I swore that I would never be satisfied having good songs, especially if this got in the way of winning the battle for human rights and dignity. The point is not to be a Good Person with High Ideals. The point is to contribute to making a better society.
Second, all my life I have been a strong admirer of John Stuart Mill (I wrote a chapter of my Ph.D. dissertation on his model of individual utility). One of his most courageous acts was to be arrested for distributing birth control information in the poor neighborhoods of London. Why did he do this? Well, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in England, numerous "utopian socialists" had devised plans for human betterment, especially for the elimination of poverty through intentional communities. The great economist Thomas Malthus' Essay on Population purported to show the futility of poverty relief, arguing that increasing the consumption of the masses would simply lead to a higher birth rate, hence more pressure on food sources, leading to a return to poverty, only with a larger population. We know now that Malthus was wrong (Google "demographic transition" and "agricultural productivity"), but his argument seemed cogent at the time. Indeed, economics was called the "dismal science" because economists like Malthus and Ricardo continually developed ingenious arguments as to why social betterment was impossible. However, John Stuart Mill saw the fallacy in Malthus's argument: if increased consumption were accompanied by a means for birth control, then the masses could enjoy a higher standard of living. I admire Mill because he accepted a dismal economic analysis because he thought it correct, and then tried to solve the social problem involved (poverty) even given the veracity of the economic argument.
Thomas Sowell is a serious economist and a fine writer. There is not a single argument in this book that I think is either incorrect or even disingenuous. Everyone interested in economic and social policy should read this, and his other writings. Sowell is best as showing how statistics can mislead. For instance, he says "It is an undisputed fact that the average real income...of American households rose by only 6 percent over the entire period from 1969 to 1996...But it is an equally undisputed fact that the average real income per person in the United States rose by 51 percent over that very same period." (p. 125) Both are true because average household size decreased dramatically over the period, with more elderly couples and fewer children per married couple in the later period.
Nota bene: commentators who give the household change while ignoring the individual change are slimebags. You may say that they are well-intentioned, but that does not change the fact that they are liars out to mislead the uniformed. Sowell often manages to reveal the liars and slimebags for what they are. Moreover, this is a service to us all, for how are we to identify and solve social problems if we do not know what they are?
My only serious criticism of Sowell is that he is rather more like Thomas Malthus than like John Stuart Mill in temperament. He repeatedly attempts to say that a social problem is less serious than liberals believe, or that a problem cannot be solved by a social intervention. Sowell's deep understanding of the capitalist system is not deployed to generate novel, effective, solutions to problems. In this, he differs from his mentor, Milton Friedman, whose Capitalism and Freedom contained numerous creative interventions, including the negative income tax and school vouchers.
To whet the reader's appetite, here are a few of Sowell's positions.

(1) Rent control is a stupid way to help the poor, because it drives down the supply of affordable housing;
(2) Racial discrimination is not the cause of income differences between blacks and whites, which are virtually equal when correcting for IQ, education, experience, and other demographic variables;
(3) the same is true for the role of gender discrimination in accounting for the lower incomes of women as opposed to men;
(4) Slavery, racism, and discrimination are not the cause of the social pathologies associated with poor black inner-city neighborhoods; rather the causes lie in a variant of black culture inherited from traditional southern poor white culture;
(5) Poverty in the third world is not caused by imperialism or wealth in the rich countries.

In each of these, and several other areas, I think Sowell's arguments are correct, and should be take serious when proposing vigorous social policies for creating a more equal and fair distribution of the world's resources and produced wealth.
Sowell's take on the "Vanishing Middle Class." In just a few paragraph's he is able to completely turn that notion on it's head... and show why the oft repeated claim is jibberish. I now know this book will be an excellent resource for fighting commonly held economic fallacies. Yesterday I read the chapter on Men vs. Women pay. The commonly held belief is that women don't make as much as a man because of discrimination. While keeping an open minded view that discrimination could come in to play, Sowell delivers an extremely convincing alternative argument for the discrepancy in pay. This book really is an eye opener.

[svinayak]

War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism
by Douglas J. Feith (Author)

# Hardcover: 688 pages
# Publisher: Harper (April 8, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0060899735
# ISBN-13: 978-0060899738

[quote]

—James Schlesinger, Director of Central Intelligence, Nixon Administration; Secretary of Defense, Nixon and Ford Administrations; Secretary of Energy, Carter Administration
“For anyone seriously interested in the decisions prior to and during the Iraq war, War and Decision is a must-read book. It is the first from within the Department of Defense, and Feith provides careful documentation rather than just freewheeling opinions. He explodes many of the journalistic and political myths that have become widely accepted. He provides a spirited defense of the President’s decisions, though the subsequent discussion makes clear the failures in execution. His judgments are thoughtful—and, for a major player in the process, he is quite objective regarding what went wrong. War and Decision will be a treasure trove for the historians—when the current passions have finally cooled.â€

[Rahul M]

The First Great Political Realist: Kautilya and His Arthashastra By Roger Boesche

has anyone read this book ??

[ramana]

Rahul We had a review posted in the old book review thread

Book review thread archived

[Rahul M]

ramana, I don't think this particular book has been reviewed.

I checked the thread and searched with different keywords, and this one is not present. There is only one book on arthashastra reviewed, whch is this one:


Relevance of Kautilya for Today: Dr K.S. Narayanacharya; preface by S. Gurumurthy; Kautilya Institute of National Studies, Mysore, pp 146, Rs 150.00

[svinayak]

Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe
by Laurence Bergreen (Author)

# Hardcover: 480 pages
# Publisher: William Morrow (October 14, 2003)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0066211735
# ISBN-13: 978-0066211732

Journalist Bergreen, who has penned biographies of James Agee, Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin and Al Capone, superbly recreates Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan's obsessive 16th-century quest, an ill-fated journey that altered Europe's perception of the planet: "It was a dream as old as the imagination: a voyage to the ends of the earth.... Mariners feared they could literally sail over the edge of the world." In 2001, Bergreen traveled the South American strait that bears Magellan's name, and he adds to that firsthand knowledge satellite images of Magellan's route plus international archival research. His day-by-day account incorporates the testimony of sailors, Francisco Albo's pilot's log and the eyewitness accounts of Venetian scholar Antonio Pigafetta, who was on the journey. Magellan's mission for Spain was to find a water route to the fabled Spice Islands, and in 1519, the Armada de Molucca (five ships and some 260 sailors) sailed into the pages of history. Many misfortunes befell the expedition, including the brutal killing of Magellan in the Philippines. Three years later, one weather-beaten ship, "a vessel of desolation and anguish," returned to Spain with a skeleton crew of 18, yet "what a story those few survivors had to tell-a tale of mutiny, of orgies on distant shores, and of the exploration of the entire globe," providing proof that the world was round. Illuminating the Age of Discovery, Bergreen writes this powerful tale of adventure with a strong presence and rich detail. Maps, 16-page color photo insert.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Adventure tales are even more exciting if they're true, as this narrative is. The text, based on the diary of Venetian scholar Antonio Pigafetta and the pilot's log of Francisco Albo, gives a day-by-day account of the hardships, misfortunes, and triumphs of life on the sea in the sixteenth century as Magellan and his crew sought a water route to the fabled Spice Islands. Tim Jerome reads the harrowing events with the voice of a historian--calm yet not dull. He inserts precise accents when speaking as the voice of Pigafetta and when reading the names contained in the narrative. His voice rolls like the ships rolled in the waves as he navigates this sea tale to its completion. J.F.M. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The amazing story of Magellan's circumnavigation of the world practically writes itself, especially with access to the journals of Antonio Pigafetta, a Venetian "passenger". The key for any author is not muck up this incredible story. Bergreen succeeds wonderfully by offering a smooth read. The books 400 plus pages fly by. Bergreen seemingly omits nothing and, the journey is here in all its gory, exciting, repellent, horrifying, shocking, wondrous, cruel, beautiful, nerve-wracking, spine-tingling detail.
Bergreen presents about as clear a picture of Magellan the man as possible from nearly 500 years away. The reader is left to admire his leadership and navigational skills and lament his capriciousness and hubris.
Coming on the heels of the vastly overrated Columbus journeys, Magellan's expedition was to prove equally significant, though more calculated and replete with many, many more adventures and tragedies.
A scant few of the original crew and only one of the five ships completed the journey. Along the way there were horrendous storms, mutinies, executions, horrible accidents, illness (scurvy in particular) and all manner of encounters with natives. These encounters could lead to everything from feasts and orgies to murder and dismemberment.
Bergreen does a wonderful job of framing the story within the perspective of the times and the religious, political and social climates.
To me the real hero of the journey emerges in the person of Pigafetta who did a superlative of chronicling the adventure. His must be some of the most thoughtful and thorough journals of their times.
Bergreen's book does him and Magellan's journey justice.


Historical achievement is, of course, about people. So no matter when it occurs, achievement is driven by technology, greed, politics, ambition, mistakes, courage, religion, culture, sexuality, and even diet. Good History is as much as about explaining the context of achievement, as it is about detailing facts. This is good History -- and it's a great read.

For most of us, the facts about Magellan have been boiled down to Spanish galleons, funny helmets, and the first circumnavigation of the globe. Bergreen recovers the context to tell a story of a religious man, driven by vision, ambition, and personal slight. Along the way he explains the strategic urgency of Magellan's quest and details the logistics of undertaking the voyage. He helps us understand why cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg were matters of national security to sixteenth century Europeans.

Bergreen leaves us with no doubt that Magellan was courageous. His Magellan is not evil, though the evils of the Age of Exploration are already evident in him and his men. As in other tellings, Magellan's death on the beach at Cebu is an obvious metaphor for the collision of East and West, but Bergreen leaves it to others to belabor the notion. He's much more interested in describing the local politics that set the scene for the tragedy.

With such rich detail and engaging writing, the story of Magellan comes to life as a vivid adventure and an enlightening history.

[Raju]

From the Lexicon of Freemasonry we can learn that the Pharisees were a Secret Society also. Their Society began in Babylon and they called themselves there Chabirim, meaning fellows or associates. Today we have the Odd Fellows, a masonic group. It seems that they like to retain names.

We get a better understanding of why Jews are drawn to Freemasonry when we understand that modern Judaism is actually the old Phariseeism continued.

PHARISEES.
A school among the Jews at the time of Christ, so called from the Aramaic Perushim, Separated, because they held themselves apart from the rest of the nation. They claimed to have a mysterious knowledge unknown to the mass of the people, and pretended to the exclusive possession of the true meaning of the Scriptures, by virtue of the oral law and the secret traditions which, having been received by Moses on Mount Sinai, had been transmitted to successive generations of initiates. They are supposed to have been essentially the same as the Assideans or Chasidim. The character of their organization is interesting to the Masonic student. They held a secret doctrine, of which the dogma of the resurrection was an important feature; they met in sodalities or societies, the members of which called themselves Chabirim, meaning fellows or associates; and they styled all who were outside of their mystical association, Yom Haharetz, or people of the land.

e-book link

[svinayak]

http://www.richardcrasta.com/
http://www.richardcrasta.com/impressing_the_whites.htm

Impressing The Whites
The New International Slavery
by Richard Crasta
--an Anti-Racist Book that Speaks of the Unspeakable*

Impressing the Whites: The New International Slavery
by Richard Crasta

Paperback, 169 pages

April 2000

81- 87185-02-3

[quote]

The book is a complex analysis of the politics, history, and nuances of how colored and white people behave with each other. Among other matters, it asks this fundamental question: Why do we Indians, and billions of nonwhite people, go blue in our brown and black faces, trying to impress the whites? Why do we so yearn for the approval of whites, even though colonialism is supposedly dead, and we boast of an ancient and philosophical culture second to none? A scene from this moving, forcefully argued, and sometimes hilarious nonfiction book is devoted to a fantasy scenario of the U.S. President’s Imperial visit (and a phrase in the First Edition,, "access to His Majesty by journalists of brown hue was strictly limited" painfully and prophetically foretold the brouhaha about limited access to Clinton by brown journalists), while the core of the book mercilessly analyzes the dark truths behind the relationship of the Nonwhite races to the White race.

The book launch took place, appropriately, at the India International Centre March 17, just two days before President Clinton’s visit.

At the book launch and in the book, Crasta suggested numerous countermeasures including establishing an Eastern Nobel Prize (with the money from our new and ultra-generous Indian billionaires), the secession of Indian Catholics from the Catholic Church (because the Pope is white!), universal multiple citizenship, and ensuring that in our list of book purchases, at least half the books are by authors who have NOT impressed the whites.

In this book, Crasta argues that we Indians, as well as most Third World nations, have made white into the color of power and black into the color of inferiority, darkness, and evil. He sees the West as increasingly ruling the cultural agenda of India: particularly at its commanding heights—the minds of its brightest and wealthiest, its urban young, its intellectuals, its English-language media. He sees this as a continuation of imperialism and colonialism at a more sophisticated level: the colonies have been established inside the former subjects’ heads. They are now slave to their Inner White, and they make every effort, in their behavior and in their goals, to impress and please the Outer, Real White, who now runs the colonies from their home base.

The guaranteed formula for success in today’s world: The Twelve Commandments of Nonwhite (Male) Success in the West

* The political, economic, and philosophical implications of Monica Lewinsky’s underwear.
* Why the idea that color doesn’t matter is a black lie, and what to tell your children about their color
* Why colored people worship white people, and want to get patted on the back by them.
* Why milking the West is a major Third World industry.
* The phenomenon of Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, and Arundhati Roy, and what it means.
* The New Spiritual Colonialism

Impressing the Whites: The New International Slavery

Is the title of the latest book I read. Two words are sufficient to sum up the book’s review: powerful and path-breaking. But I’ll prattle along.

The book’s title almost reveals its theme: that colonialism is not dead. It is thriving inside the minds of both the formerly-colonized as well as the “liberalâ€

[ramana]

Raju, Please transfer your post to the e-books thread. Thanks, ramana

[ShauryaT]

[quote="Airavat]His previous book, Shadow of the Great Game, was an overview of the events leading up to partition, but this funny, engaging memoir shows more of the man himself.[/quote]I am reading Shadow of the great game now, would recommend it.

[SSridhar]

Feudals and Pirs of Pakistan

Pakistan Kay Siyasi Waderay
By Aqeel Abbas Jafri
Jehangir Books, Lahore
912 pp. Rs600

Historically speaking, there seems to be a lot of truth in the oft-repeated assertion that Pakistan has remained in the grip of five vested groups and that has marred its progress towards genuine democracy. These five groups are the army, feudal lords, bureaucrats, big business, and the religious extremists.

However, it is really strange that there is not a single book available detailing the political role played by any of these groups. The book under review seems to have filled the gap so far as the feudals are concerned. It also sheds light on the influence of pirs. It is the first full-length study about the political role played by feudal families who are spread out in all the four provinces of the country. The book was first published in 1993 and included 81 feudal families. Its present edition, however, contains references to 102 families.

The well-known families described in alphabetical order include: 15 from NWFP, 36 from Punjab, 33 from Sindh and 18 from Balochistan. It contains names of all the politically famous families such as Bilours, Khattaks, Sherpaos and Hotis (NWFP); Pirachas, Tiwanas, Janjuas, Chaudhrys, Cheemas, Daultanas, Qureshis, Kasuris, Khars, Gilanis, Legharis, Makhdoomzadas, Nawabzadas (Punjab); Bijranis, Bhuttos, Peeran Pagaras, Perzadas, Talpurs, Jams, Jamots, Jatois, Junejos, Chandios, Zardaris, Syeds, Soomros, Sheerazis, Abbasis, Kazis, Gabols, Makhdooms, and Mehrs (Sindh); Achakzais, Bizenjos, Bugtis, Jams, Jamalis, Rinds, Raeesanis, Khosas, Marris, Magsis and Mengals (Balochistan). It is interesting to know that some feudal families such as the Arbabs are found in NWFP as well as in Sindh; Jams are present in Sindh as well as in Balochistan and Abbasis in Sindh and Punjab.

The book traces the genealogy of each of these famous families from its ‘humble’ beginning, as to how their ancestors arrived at a particular spot at a particular time and how with the passage of time gained power in their respective areas — which was usually with the help of the Britishers who ruled the subcontinent at that time.

The writer maintains that from the period of the Khilafat movement right up to the creation of Pakistan, members of the middle class dominated the political scene and all the feudal lords and pirs were sidelined.{Which is not true though. The feudals and pirs were employed by Jinnah to turn around loyalties from the Congress to the Muslim League.} But later, especially after the sad demise of the Quaid-i-Azam, the situation almost reversed and all these forces emerged on the scene and became the custodians of Pakistan.

Says the writer: ‘The main dilemma for the people of Pakistan is: no matter, even when there are free and fair elections, or when there occurs a coup d’etat, whether there is a democratic government or an iron-fisted rule, the leadership eventually comes from the feudals. Sometimes, they become ‘Republicans’, sometimes, they gather on the platform of a ‘Convention Muslim League’, sometimes they lend colour to the gatherings of ‘Islamic socialism’ under Z.A.Bhutto , they are also seen in Ziaul Haq’s ‘Majlis-i-Shoora’ and still on other occasions become the soul mates of Nawaz Sharif’. Not only this, even most of the opposition leaders come from this group..

In fact, feudals have always been accused of playing a part in in maintaining the socio-political status quo, although for some hard-boiled realists the feudal power is on the wane following the two land reforms — no matter how much manipulated they were.

In Marxist theory, feudalism is the ‘system of production relations, divested of any reference to law, religion, or bonds of obligation.’ The transition from feudalism to capitalism is necessitated by the productive powers to the point where ‘division of labour’, and hence a market economy becomes necessary.

Seen in the global perspective today, feudalism has become almost an anachronism, so much so that the prestigious House of Lords is being replaced with an elected Senate in England — a country known to love its traditions. It seems that the world seems to have accepted the once hated capitalist under the present governance but it has refused to shake hands with feudal lords anymore.

But under the old formula of the God-gifted state of Pakistan — Allah being the pillar of the state and America, its financial and military underpin, there is not a bit of change and the entire old system is very much intact. It is therefore no surprise that our system remains an authoritarian one.

Apart from their honourable mention individually or as a class, no one has taken them to task so far, collectively, and they too seem to have changed a lot. Sensing an irresistible wind of change, feudals, in order to preserve their fiefdoms, have started penetrating almost all the political parties, except one. They have also contracted marriages outside their clans with the families of high-ranking army officials, financial magnates, bankers, bureaucrats and industrialists. An English newspaper columnist, while commenting on the phenomena has termed it as an ‘incestuous oligarchy’.

However, except for a single instance, the book contains nothing offensive about any of the feudals and it can be read by any of them without being annoyed. As far as the general reader is concerned, the writer says: ‘The book you are holding, does not offer any solution to the dilemma, but after reading it, you can definitely recognise the faces of those who are anti-democratic and yet who masquerade themselves as democrats in various garbs and in various regimes.’

[svinayak]

Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy
by Michael T. Klare (Author)


# Hardcover: 352 pages
# Publisher: Metropolitan Books (April 15, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0805080643
# ISBN-13: 978-0805080643

Looking at the "new international energy order," author and journalist Klare (Resource Wars) finds America's "sole superpower" status falling to the increasing influence of "petro-superpowers" like Russia and "Chindia." Klare identifies and analyzes the major players as well as the playing field, positing armed conflict and environmental disaster in the balance. Currently in the lead is emerging energy superpower Russia, which has gained "immense geopolitical influence" selling oil and natural gas to Europe and Asia; the rapidly-developing economies of China and India follow. Klare also warns of the danger of a new cold-war environment that would suck up resources that should go toward "environmentally sensitive energy alternatives." To avert catastrophe, he urges a U.S. diplomatic initiative to build collaboration with China (rapidly moving to second place in carbon emissions) to develop alternative energy resources, such as biodiesel fuels; ultra-light, ultra-efficient vehicles; and an innovative plan to use new coal plants, currently in-development, to strip carbon waste which can then be buried underground. Well-researched and incisive throughout, Klare provides a comprehensive but approachable overview of a complex problem, and offers promising policy alternatives to disaster.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"A brilliant exposition on one of the gigantic problems facing society. Klare is a top expert on the politics of energy and resources. Read him!"—Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Dominant Animal



"Four centuries ago, as the conquistadors roamed through South America, it was the search for gold that drove the clash of empires. A hundred years later, as the great powers fought over the West Indies, it was the quest for land that could grow sugar cane. Today, the key commodity is oil. No one knows this subject better than Michael Klare, and his book is a trenchant and informative guide to what the fatal thirst for oil means for the tensions and rivalries of our fragile planet."—Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost



“If you want to understand the future of international relations, worry less about ideology and more about oil reserves. Michael Klare's superb new book explains, in haunting detail, the trends that will lead us into a series of dangerous traps, unless we muster the will to transform the way we use energy in this country. As illuminating as it is unsettling.”—Bill McKibben, author The Bill McKibben Reader



“Once again, Michael Klare has vividly spelled out the geopolitical ramifications of resource scarcity as he did in both Blood and Oil and Resource Wars. His new book deals with our pending clash as we enter an unprecedented time of surging demand for oil while its conventional supply peaks. The book is a serious must read for any student of geopolitics."—Matthew R. Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert



"When danger looms, ignorance is not bliss. Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet defines a new benchmark for understanding the perilous complexities of strategic natural resources and how they shape the modern world. Klare articulates his message with sober honesty and appropriate urgency. If knowledge is power, it is also empowering; let us use this information to rekindle hope and commit to action, vigorously adopting the practical and profitable solutions that already do exist."—Amory B. Lovins, author of Winning the Oil Endgame


When the Cold war ended, Americans generally assumed the U.S. would enjoy unchallenged preponderance in the world. Instead, Russia now has reemerged as a major actor and the U.S. has, in contrast, sometimes found itself cajoling foreign suppliers to increase output. Meanwhile, China's foreign currency reserves in late 2007 were $1.4 trillion, and rich Arab states recently invested $20 billion into Citibank.

According to the U.S. DOE, world energy supplies must increase 57% over the next quarter-century. This will not be met by increased alternative fuels - existing sources will provide 87% of the total need, but be harder to obtain.

Many believe this DOE projection of increased supply is optimistic - it counts on a 67% increase from Saudi Arabia. Nearly half of current oil production comes from 116 fields - all but four were discovered over 25 years ago, and many are showing signs of diminished capacity. Regardless, current consumption is double the discovery rate. As for alternative sources, it takes about 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas to produce 1 million barrels of oil from tar sands, as well as enormous quantities of scare water. (Gas finds are similarly declining - production is expected to peak soon as well, and this is not even counting increased demand due to Kyoto promises to use less-polluting fuel.) Corn is no cure either - considerable energy is used producing ethanol and it already is linked to substantial protests over increased food prices.

America's military used 1 gallon of petroleum/soldier/day during WWII, 4 in Gulf War I, and 16 currently in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Other trends are that oil control is increasingly moving into national hands (eg. Russia, Venezuela), and oil companies are increasing their clout (and profits) by moving into refining, transportation, and marketing. Klare also tells us that coal production is expected to peak in the late 2020's, and nuclear fuel availability to last only 40 years - again assuming no increase in utilization.

Still another problem: Increasing "gunboat diplomacy" (eg. U.S. fleet sailing through the Straits of Hormuz, China and Japan squaring off over a large off-shore gas field that both claim, new U.S. and Russian bases in the "stans," and alliances between various nations to protect oil interests), and arming of second/third-level nations in Africa and the mid-East by the U.S., Russia, and China.

Klare suggests the U.S. begin working collaboratively with China, and increased research on alternatives fuel sources. Conservation is another key opportunity - for example, Paul Krugman's 5/12/08 column points out that France uses only half the per capita oil of the U.S., and is hardly considered an impoverished nation.


If anyone is wondering why we have such high gasoline prices in this country this book might give us some clues as to the reason(s) behind such increases in price- peak oil. But not just that- it's peak everything! Increasingly as China, India, Japan, Russia, United States, and Canada compete for natural resources, we are depleting them at a very rapid rate. The author thinks we are pretty much at peak oil and will soon reach peak natural gas in the next decade. Due to the increased competition for resources, alliances have been built to ensure access to these resources via weapons trade and security whether it be in Africa, Central Asia, or Latin America. Countries are even competing for the remaining 25% of oil reserves in the North Pole. Michael Klare believes that if this gun boat diplomacy build up continues, we will be looking at another global war which would be catatrophic for the world. Unfortunately, his suggestions for alternative energy sources are of little consolation give that research and development are still at the early stages and in no way can compete with petroleum. I seriously doubt diplomacy will work as Klare suggests given the history of world conflict and the quest for precious resources. I find the current state of world affairs to be very frightening. Nevertheless, this book provides important information that is sure to startle you. So if you want to understand world affairs and politics as it relates to oil and other natural resources, this book is a must. Highly recommend.

[svinayak]

War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism
by Douglas J. Feith (Author)

# Hardcover: 688 pages
# Publisher: Harper (April 8, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0060899735
# ISBN-13: 978-0060899738

This book is an absolutely fascinating look into the chain of reasoning following 9/11 that led to the declaration of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), the most tangible manifestation of which has been Operation Iraqi Freedom. Up front Feith presents his (and apparently Rumsfled's) theory that, "All organizations involved in international terrorism could be considered in partnership with others in that business (i.e. terrorism)" apparently regardless of religion, motivations or targets. Feith later (page 229) explains this network as incorporating al Qaeda, other Islamic `Jihadists' and non-Islamic Groups. The GWOT then is literally that, a U.S. world war against all groups using terrorism as their principal tactic as well as any state that sponsors them. Feith then identifies the principal strategic goal of the GWOT as to prevent another catastrophic attack against the U.S. or its interests. This apparently is the source of the administration doctrine of preemptive war or "anticipatory self-defense" as Feith calls it. Following this logic, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was identified as a state sponsor of terror and also a threat to U.S National Security in its own right. If Feith is accurate, this was the driving force behind Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Now Feith also provides the reader with some really intriguing though not necessarily accurate accounts of the deliberations that went on in the build up to Operation Iraqi Freedom and its immediate aftermath. By his own account, Feith was a strong backer of Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress as the government in exile best suited to take over after the fall Saddam Hussein. His faith in what he calls "Iraqi Externals" was apparently boundless.

Feith also expresses his extreme dissatisfaction with the intelligence provided by CIA prior to the war. He denies that he ever claimed that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack, but he did claim that Iraqi was a state sponsor of terrorists. For this reason he agreed with his superior, Paul Wolfowitz that an Iraq-al Qaeda connection ought to be looked into as their feeling was that CIA was not willing to do so. To this end he directed a loan-in analyst from DIA to conduct a review of all the intelligence on this connection. The analyst literally did this by compiling a list of all the reporting that indicated an Iraqi-al Qaeda connection. But in what could called an incredible omission, the analyst failed to compile a similar list of the reporting that contradicted those reports or indeed to subject the reports that had been compiled to any sort of critical analysis. This is pretty well how Feith conducted all of his official business.

Feith is a reasonably good writer, but he appears utterly unreflective and arrogant. Yet his book does provide unique insights on why Iraq was considered so important to the GWOT.

I have now finished the book but the number of negative reviews posted here still suggests that half a review by someone who has read the book carefully was better than what else is on offer so far. I have not altered my comments since reading the rest but have a few additional observations. This is a personal story of Feith's career in the DoD, before and during the Iraq War. He comments on contacts with others but he does not offer general statements or philosophy about matters that he is not personally familiar with. He does, however, offer some conclusions at the end about what was done well and what the mistakes were. He is honest about identifying his opinions and what he believes to be facts. This is a source document for the history that will be eventually written, hopefully fairly, about this period. I marked a number of sections because they impact the mythology of the war as illustrated in the other reviews and comments.

He is critical of Colin Powell, and especially, Richard Armitage, who seemed not to be as concerned with the post-Saddam situation yet who resisted anyone else treading on their turf. His first skirmish was in 2002 (page 173) when he attempted to set up an office, called Office of Strategic Influence, to counteract the Islamist propaganda about why violent jihad was becoming a threat. Some went back to the old "root causes" excuse yet the Saudi hijackers of 9/11 were upper middle class educated men. His effort came to naught when the office was attacked in a strategic leak from within the administration, followed by a sensational NY Times article that accused them of planning to spread false information. Another similar article was printed recently about another DoD effort to reach Muslims with honest information. In his conclusions, he points out that we still do not have any serious effort to counter jihadist rhetoric.

He refutes (page 197) another charge, prominent in another review here, that Chalabi was a "creature" of DoD and Feith was his "sponsor." One would think that the fact the Chalabi has been a major official in the Iraq government would put to rest that old CIA smear but it lives on on Amazon pages. He tells the story of CIA incompetence and the firestorm created when a 20-year DIA expert on his staff wrote a critical briefing (page 265) pointing out how CIA had ignored links between Saddam and al Qeada before the war. On page 278, he recounts another example of State's conflicted thinking where they advise against an "occupation" but their antipathy toward the "externals" (exiles like Chalabi) leads them to plan for a "many year" occupation and rule before an Iraqi government can be set up. The insurgency gained force from resentment at that policy. He points out with some understandable satisfaction that the "externals," including the Kurds who CIA predicted would not be accepted by other Iraqis, constituted almost the entire interim government that took over from Bremer and the CPA in 2004.

He has some mixed opinions about Paul Bremer, pointing out how Bremer took too much authority, resisting any consultation with Rumsfeld, his superior in the chain-of-command, and made a number of serious mistakes. The most serious one was excluding the Iraqis from governing their own country for as long as he did. The insurgency might never have gained the support of so much of the Sunni population had the "Occupation" not been so obvious.

I don't say this is the last word and Feith seems to resist many generalizations. This is an objective account and very valuable. He has his deficiencies. The most serious is the fact the he never mentions the tribal nature of the Iraqi society. This was a major mistake in the early history of our post-Saddam attempts to govern the country and fight the insurgency.

I have read many books on this subject and the ones I respect, beginning with The Threatening Storm by Kenneth Pollack, all mostly agree. For example, another review here mentions Bob Baer and his book about Aghanistan and Gary Berntsen and "Jawbreaker" also about Afghanistan. I have read both books and Baer, in particular, dismisses his CIA bosses pointing out the lack of language skills in CIA. This lack, and the ignorance of the culture, was a major factor in the CIAs poor performance in Iraq and is discussed by Feith. He is chiefly critical of CIA implying that their information was better sourced than it was. They concealed how few assets they had in Iraq (none) and led others astray who placed more faith in their reports than was warranted. Better to confess ignorance than mislead.

The dissent, like some of the other reviews here, comes with plenty of invective and obscenity but few facts. I still think this is an important book that anyone trying to understand our policy on fighting militant Islam should read. I'm sure Feith is evening a few scores here but he marshals lots of facts and refers to other documents to support his conclusions. This is an essential book, not least because he is such a controversial figure. The abuse he has taken from partisans is outrageous. At one point (page 388) he mentions a particularly odious slur attributed to Colin Powell by Bob Woodward in which Feith's office in the DoD is described as "a Gestapo office" ignoring the fact that Feith's father was a Holocaust survivor. Powell denied making the remark and apologized to Feith, whom he had known for 20 years, but the tone was set.

[svinayak]

The Age of American Unreason (Hardcover)
by Susan Jacoby (Author)

# Hardcover: 384 pages
# Publisher: Pantheon (February 12, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0375423745
# ISBN-13: 978-0375423741

Inspired by Richard Hofstadter's trenchant 1963 cultural analysis Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Jacoby (Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism) has produced an engaging, updated and meticulously thought-out continuation of her academic idol's research. Dismayed by the average U.S. citizen's political and social apathy and the overall crisis of memory and knowledge involving everything about the way we learn and think, Jacoby passionately argues that the nation's current cult of unreason has deadly and destructive consequences (the war in Iraq, for one) and traces the seeds of current anti-intellectualism (and its partner in crime, antirationalism) back to post-WWII society. Unafraid of pointing fingers, she singles out mass media and the resurgence of fundamentalist religion as the primary vectors of anti-intellectualism, while also having harsh words for pseudoscientists. Through historical research, Jacoby breaks down popular beliefs that the 1950s were a cultural wasteland and the 1960s were solely a breeding ground for liberals. Though sometimes partial to inflated prose (America's endemic anti-intellectual tendencies have been grievously exacerbated by a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism), Jacoby has assembled an erudite mix of personal anecdotes, cultural history and social commentary to decry America's retreat into junk thought. (Feb. 12)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker
Identifying herself as a "cultural conservationist" (but by no means a cultural conservative), Jacoby laments the decline of middlebrow American culture and presents a cogent defense of intellectualism. America, she believes, faces a "crisis of memory and knowledge," in which anti-intellectualism is not only tolerated but celebrated by those in politics and the media to whom we are all "just folks." The Internet, for all its promise, is too often "a highway to the far-flung regions of junk thought." Meanwhile, twenty-five per cent of high-school biology teachers believe that human beings and dinosaurs shared the earth, and more than a third of Americans can’t name a single First Amendment right. In such an environment, Jacoby argues, the secular left and the religious right can have no fruitful dialogue on issues like the separation of church and state. She offers little hope that the situation will improve, opining that, despite increasing levels of education, "Americans seem to know less and less."


"The Age of American Unreason" aims to update us (post Richard Hofstadter's 1963 "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life") on how American culture devalues knowledge and rationalism. Supporting material include findings that only about half of Americans read a book in any year, only 26% accept Darwin's theory of evolution, and only a minority can name the four gospels or the first book of the Bible. Jacoby also contends that anti-intellectualism and knowledge is worse in the U.S. than any other developed economy - but offers no evidence.

How did we get to this state? McCarthyism, liberal Soviet defenders, the growth of religious fundamentalism and junk-science, and a celebrity-focused culture are proffered candidates for blame. Again, however, little is offered as evidence except in the case of junk science - fomented by right-wing backers. Regardless, Jacoby also fails to peel back the onion further - eg. "Why has fundamentalism grown?" Jacoby does make an important point stating that the impact of anti-intellectualism is much greater today than the 1800's when science and medicine had much less to offer.

Other candidates should also be considered for blame - the growth of particularly strong anti-intellectualism among inner-city African-American youth, endless self-promoting junk science "research" from other sources (eg. drug companies, various "diet gurus," many social 'scientists'), elevation of race- and gender-based courses to major fields of study, the growth of "political correctness" and cultural relativism, truth-twisting by politicians, misleading and overly simplistic books and articles (eg. concluding causation via correlation), weak academic standards, and media's minimal efforts at investigative journalism.

Jacoby also fails to note that the average citizen's aversion to knowledge and rationalism can at least be partially explained. After all, who wants more work after their eight+ hours on the job and fighting traffic, preparing and eating breakfast and dinner, PLUS taking care of the children and other family matters? Further, separating junk science from the real thing requires considerable subject matter (often deliberately withheld) and statistical background. As for politics, even some knowledgeable people I know see involvement as a waste of time - "nothing changes," "they all lie," and "only big donors have input," while leaders since Harry Truman have bemoaned economists' inability to come to useful conclusions.

On the other hand, it is troubling to see how readily misinformed Americans acquiesce to acceptance of non-thinking ideology and major misdirections in American governance. And it hurts to see those pathetic performances on "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader," and U.S. pupils vs. foreigners.

My recommendations for "The Age of American Unreason" are to shorten and strengthen it considerably by deleting most of the boring history and replacing most of the weak anecdotal "evidence" with more quality surveys and other statistics. As for improving America's intellect, I suggest increasing parent and pupil motivation and respect for learning by making it academically much more difficult to enter college, as it is in Asia, and adding a requirement for understanding logic and statistical reasoning. Finally, lawmakers should demand that PBS provide additional documentaries, and encourage ABC, CBS, NBC etc. to do likewise.


Susan Jacoby's beautifully written and convincingly argued book should be sine qua non reading for ALL parents, as well anyone who has anything to do with education. She clears away any doubts one might entertain about the benefits of even the most "educational" videos for young children, backing up her points with evidence from reliable sources. According to a recent study carried out by the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital, overexposure to videos like "Brainy Baby" may actually be impeding language development in babies.
The book's acute analysis of political "communication" and media punditry should also be required reading for anyone who aspires to make an informed and wise choice in the crucial political battle currently being fought for the future of our nation. Her observations are all the more interesting in light of the current attack on "eloquence" in political speech--with its specious implication that one cannot be eloquent and effective simultaneously.
There are purely intellectual pleasures as well to be had from Jacoby's wonderfully ambitious reach into American history. I particularly enjoyed her investigation of the idea that, from the very beginning, our democratic culture rested on a contradiction: [Jacoby, 37] "The health of democracy, as so many of the founders had proclaimed, depended on an educated citizenry, but many Americans also believed that too much learning might set one citizen above another and violate the very democratic ideals that education was supposed to foster."
I particularly recommend the downloadable vodcast of Jacoby's interview with Bill Moyers [Feb. 15th] http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html . Given the very substantial interest the book has already sparked, there may be some hope for us yet.

[svinayak]

The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
by Nicholas Carr (Author)

# Hardcover: 276 pages
# Publisher: W. W. Norton (January 7, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0393062287
# ISBN-13: 978-0393062281

While it may seem that we're in the midst of an unprecedented technological transition, Carr (Does IT Matter?) posits that the direction of the digital revolution has a strong historical corollary: electrification. Carr argues that computing, no longer personal, is going the way of a power utility. Manufacturers used to provide their own power (i.e., windmills and waterwheels) until they plugged into the electric grid a hundred years ago. According to Carr, we're in the midst of a similar transition in computing, moving from our own private hard drives to the computer as access portal. Soon all companies and individuals will outsource their computing systems, from programming to data storage, to companies with big hard drives in out-of-the-way places. Carr's analysis of the recent past is clear and insightful as he examines common computing tools that are embedded in the Internet instead of stored on a hard drive, including Google and YouTube. The social and economic consequences of this transition into the utility age fall somewhere between uncertain and grim, Carr argues. Wealth will be further consolidated into the hands of a few, and specific industries, publishing in particular, will perish at the hands of crowdsourcing and the unbundling of content. However, Carr eschews an entirely dystopian vision for the future, hypothesizing without prognosticating. Perhaps lucky for us, he leaves a great number of questions unanswered. (Jan.)

Nicholas Carr's latest book The Big Switch is not the book that many would expect, in fact its better. Carr, who made his fame by making the assertion that IT doesn't Matter and then asking the question Does IT matter? deals with this subject for about 10% of the book. The remainder concentrates on Carr's looking forward to business, society, politics and the world we are creating. It's a welcome switch as it enables Carr to discuss broader issues rather than hammering on a narrow point.

The net score of three stars is based on the following logic. This book gets four stars as it's is a good anthological review of broader issues that have been in the marketplace for some time. It loses one star because that is all it is, a discussion, without analysis, ideas, alternatives or business applications the book discusses rather than raises issues for the future.

Ostensibly the big switch is between today's corporate computing which has islands of individual automation to what Carr calls the world wide computer - basically the programmable internet. Carr's attempt to coin a new phrase - world wide computer, is one of the things that does not work in this book. It feels contrived and while the internet is undergoing fundamental change, the attempt at rebranding is an unnecessary distraction.

Overall, this is a good book and should be considered as part of the overall future of economics and business genre rather than a discussion of IT or technology. Carr is an editor at heart and that shows through in this book. 80% of the book is reviews and discussions of the works of other people. I counted at least 30 other books and authors that I have read and Carr uses to support his basic argument.

The book's primary weakness is in its lack of attention to business issues, strategies and business recommendations. As an editor, it's understandable that Carr would not know first hand how to run a company. But I would have expected a more balanced analysis of the issues. Carr almost exclusively talks with companies that are vendors of this new solution - the supply side. He is a booster for Google - not a bad thing in itself - but something that leaves the book unbalanced. Without case examples, a discussion of business decisions, and alternatives - the book is too general to be something to organize my company's future around.

As an anthology about technology's influence on the future it's pretty good. The book does not deliver on groundbreaking new ideas that will drive strategy - particularly not for people who have followed the development of the internet. If you have read Gilder, Negroponte, Davenport and Harris, Peters, Lewis, Tapscott, among others, then you will recognize many of the ideas in this book.

Carr's book is in fact a prime example of the future world he describes where individuals garner attention, form a social group and then extract value from that group. Carr garnered attention with IT Doesn't Matter, used that to polarize the business community into IT supporters and detractors - creating even more attention, and finally extracting value from the group in the form of speaking engagements and this book. So Carr has made the big switch and it is from traditional media to a new attention driven economy. (Read Davenport and Beck's book Attention Economy if you want to understand more)


Chapter by Chapter Review

The book is divided in to two parts. The first uses historical analysis to build the ideas that the Internet is following the same developmental path as electric power did 100 years ago. This idea is one of Carr's obsessions and featured throughout his writing. The second section discusses the economic, social and other issues associated with the Internet becoming the platform and marketplace for commerce.

Chapter 1: Burden's Wheel lays out Carr's overall argument from an academic perspective. It starts with the historical position of water power, the precursor to electricity, and then explains conceptually what these different technologies mean. This is a clear statement and one that is important to the book. Carr points out the unique economic impact of general purpose technologies - the few technologies that are the basis for a multitude of other economic activity.

Chapter 2: The Inventor and His Clear is a historical account of the early days of electricity. Well researched, this chapter is good reading for the business history buff than one looking to understand the arguments Carr is making. The chapter focuses largely on the development and adoption of electric power. It points out that electric power had some false starts such as Edison's instance on local DC plants and that it needed the development of some additional technologies to take off. As an analogy to computing and the internet, these examples fit very neatly - almost too neatly into Carr's argument.

Chapter 3: Digital Millwork discusses the recent history of the computer. This is intended to give the reader the opportunity to connect the history of the electricity at the turn of the 20th century with the development of computing at the turn of the 21st century. It works to a point. Straight comparisons between client service computing and DC power generation among others are partially accurate, but incomplete. Carr sees bandwidth as the savior of computing much in the same way that the dynamo and Tesla's AC power turned electric plants into regional power companies.

This chapter communicates Carr's basic complaint with current information technology - at least in this book. His complain on page 56 and 57 is that IT costs too much for what it delivers. Latter he talks about excess capacity in servers and computing capacity. This basic cost economics argument does not take into account the value generated by the existence of the applications that run on those servers and the fact that at the time business leaders, like their grand fathers before them did not have another choice.

Chapter 4: Goodbye, Mr. Gates holds his explanation of the future world - a future of virtual computing where physical location and therefore device based software licensing no longer exists. In the chapter, Mr. Carr is late to the game. Grid computing has been a developing factor for more than 10 years and will accelerate as this book popularizes the idea. The comments in this chapter are not particularly new for the technology aware but they are almost unabashedly positive in favor of Google, something that will continue for the rest of the book

Chapter 5: The White City turns away from a continued development of the technical ideas of virtualization and grid computing and moves back into a historical discussion of how electricity changed people's lives and societies. Again Carr is providing information to set the reader up to make a comparison to what the switch to the Internet might be. His discussion of Insull and Ford are interesting if brief.

Part Two of the book takes a curious turn ad Carr finishes his arguments about the programmable internet and then seeks to systematically undermine the value of that environment on which he says the future is based. He offers few ideas or solutions, just criticism or more appropriately the criticism of others.

Chapter 6 World Wide Computer returns to the notion of what the unbridled possibilities of the programmable internet might be. This chapter concentrates on how wonderful this world will be for the individual with infinite information and computing power available to them. Carr provides a clear example of a Ford Mustang enthusiast's ability to create their own multi-media blog/website/advertising site as an example of how wonderful the world will be. This chapter is the utopian chapter where we all can benefit; Carr will destroy most of those notions in latter chapters.

Here is where Carr discusses the future of corporate computing; giving the topic all of four paragraphs p. 117-118. The basic idea is that today's IT will fade away in the face of `business units and individuals who will be able to control the processing of information directly." For IT people, this is the end user computing argument. This is also the last word he makes on the subject of IT in the book.

Chapter 7: From Many to the Few is a discussion of the social impacts of a programmable internet where each runs their own personal business. Think Tom Peters and personal brand. This is the best chapter of the book and the most unusual Carr sets out to systematically point out the negative consequences of the assertions he makes in the previous chapters. Here he talks about the fact that fewer and fewer people will need to work in a global world of the programmable internet, that the utopia of equality and cottage industries envisioned by the web will not come to pass.

Chapter 8: The Great Unbundling talks about the move from mass markets to markets of one. The chapter also talks about the social implications of a web that connects like people creating a tribal and increasingly multi-polar world, rather than the world wide consciousness assumed to arise when education and communications levels increase.

Chapter 9 Fighting the Net discusses the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of free flowing information and the structural integrity of the net. This chapter again tears away at the foundation of the future that Carr lays out earlier. Normally in a book there would be public policy recommendations to address these points. They are not here giving this chapter more the feeling of journalism rather than analysis and insight.

Chapter 10 A Spider's Web addresses the personal privacy issues associated with the web and the realization that as Richard Hunter says "we live in a world without secrets". This chapter is a warning about the issues of privacy and what it means to do business where everything is recorded and tracked.

Chapter 11 iGod is the far out chapter talking about the fusion of human and machine consciousness. What is possible when the human brain can immediately access infinite information and the machine gains artificial intelligence? These are the questions raised but unaddressed in this chapter. In possibly setting up his next book, Carr provides a journalistic survey of the work that is being driven to bring man and machine together.