This book’s full title is America; The Epic Story of Spanish North America, 1493 to 1898. This is a book that I got from Ben McNally’s Book Shop on Bay. I always find intriguing books when I visit this shop. And this book was certainly that.
I knew a bit about the Spanish in North America, because I do read history, but I did not know the full story. I knew that Spain was in the southern states (Texas to California). I knew that Mexico won their independence from Spain (around 8121). I knew the early history of Texas and also that the US took land from Mexico in the Mexico-American war (around 1846). I did not really know how Spain settled into this land. This gives a very good and full story of this adventure into North America by the Spanish. It is quite a story and it is told well.
There is a good overview of the book on Kirkus. J.H. Elliott on New York Review of Books magazine lets you read the first part of a good review. David Steinberg on the Albuquerque Journal writes about this book and another popular book on Spanish North America called El Norte by Carrie Gibson. This was not the only book on Spain by Goodwin, he also wrote Spain: The Centre of the World, 1519–1682 and this has a review on the Spectator. There are some reviews also on Amazon (the USA site). It is interesting that for Amazon, you have to have purchased the book through them to be able to write a review.
There is little I can find online about the author. There is a bit of a biography on him at Macmillan Publishers. The basic same information is at Bloomsbury. At Thrift Books they list books by Robert Goodwin. Also, Robert Goodwin wrote an article on Five Books about the best books on Rewriting America. Robert Goodwin talks about himself on The Viney Agency.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Friday, May 29, 2020
Monday, May 25, 2020
Origins of a Journey by Daniel Grogan
This book’s full title is Origins of a Journey: History’s Greatest Adventures Marked by Ambition, Necessity and Madness. This is great little book as it mentioned all sorts of travelers, ones you have heard of ones you have not. All the entries and quite short, so if you like to read more you can go the Works Cited section to see what more you can read on your adventurer. And, of course, there is a lot more information online. Below are some of the interesting people I met in this book.
I had never heard of Fanny Bullock Workman before and she sounded quite interesting. She has a Wikipedia page here. The entry is much longer than the entry in this book. An article in the Harvard Magazine is here. Googling her name brings up all sorts of entries for this remarkable woman.
Another interesting person was Bessie Coleman. She wanted to be an aviator despite both gender and racial discrimination at that time against about her being an aviator. She was lucky to get help but she was also a strong and determined women. Here is a biography of her. She is also has a Wikipedia page. Also, see a video on Bessie Coleman. She is another great role model.
Osa and Martin Johnson were adventurers and photographers. See their Wikipedia Page. There are photographs of their adventures online. After Martin’s death, Osa went on to be a famous photographer. There is an entry on her in Women Film Pioneers Project. Osa Johnson wrote a couple of books, including I Married Adventure with reviews on Good Reads. There is a 1929 film on them. There is also an old film on Osa Johnson.
One adventurer I had always been fascinated by is Herodotus. You cannot read history without coming across his name. He is also in Wikipedia. He is talked about in the Ancient History Encyclopedia. He is called the The Father of History. There is a cute video online. He wrote books and books were written about him.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
I had never heard of Fanny Bullock Workman before and she sounded quite interesting. She has a Wikipedia page here. The entry is much longer than the entry in this book. An article in the Harvard Magazine is here. Googling her name brings up all sorts of entries for this remarkable woman.
Another interesting person was Bessie Coleman. She wanted to be an aviator despite both gender and racial discrimination at that time against about her being an aviator. She was lucky to get help but she was also a strong and determined women. Here is a biography of her. She is also has a Wikipedia page. Also, see a video on Bessie Coleman. She is another great role model.
Osa and Martin Johnson were adventurers and photographers. See their Wikipedia Page. There are photographs of their adventures online. After Martin’s death, Osa went on to be a famous photographer. There is an entry on her in Women Film Pioneers Project. Osa Johnson wrote a couple of books, including I Married Adventure with reviews on Good Reads. There is a 1929 film on them. There is also an old film on Osa Johnson.
One adventurer I had always been fascinated by is Herodotus. You cannot read history without coming across his name. He is also in Wikipedia. He is talked about in the Ancient History Encyclopedia. He is called the The Father of History. There is a cute video online. He wrote books and books were written about him.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Crashed by Adam Tooze
This book’s full title is Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World. Adam Tooze has his own web site here.
In reading this book I learned a how lot of acronyms. Like CDO - Collagenized Debt Obligations; CDS -Credit Default Swaps, ABCP-Asset Back Commercial Paper, SIV – Structured Investment Vehicles and etc. The list just goes on and on. The big surprise for me was about the Fed lending dollars to other central banks.
Oliver Bullough on The Guardian does a good review of this book. He points out that Adam Tooze talks about what happened, but not how to fix things. This next review by Roch Dunin-Wasowicz on London School of Economics (LSE) is worth the read. You almost do not have to read the book after reading this review as it seems to cover everything. The Financial Times gives a neat and very short synopsis of this book..
The review by Roch Dunin-Wasowicz talked about podcast by Adam Tooze. I did not listen to this as I do not like podcase, but I realize some people do. There is a short interview with Adam Tooze on YourTube by Bond Vigilantes of M&G Securities Limited. The National History Center has at a seminar, Adam Tooze as a speaker at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
In reading this book I learned a how lot of acronyms. Like CDO - Collagenized Debt Obligations; CDS -Credit Default Swaps, ABCP-Asset Back Commercial Paper, SIV – Structured Investment Vehicles and etc. The list just goes on and on. The big surprise for me was about the Fed lending dollars to other central banks.
Oliver Bullough on The Guardian does a good review of this book. He points out that Adam Tooze talks about what happened, but not how to fix things. This next review by Roch Dunin-Wasowicz on London School of Economics (LSE) is worth the read. You almost do not have to read the book after reading this review as it seems to cover everything. The Financial Times gives a neat and very short synopsis of this book..
The review by Roch Dunin-Wasowicz talked about podcast by Adam Tooze. I did not listen to this as I do not like podcase, but I realize some people do. There is a short interview with Adam Tooze on YourTube by Bond Vigilantes of M&G Securities Limited. The National History Center has at a seminar, Adam Tooze as a speaker at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Monday, May 11, 2020
1177 BC by Eric Cline
This book’s full title is 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. This was a great book to read. If you have any interest in ancient civilizations you will enjoy this well written book. Personally, I love history and especially when I can read good book on our past. Eric Cline brings the past to life and also updates us on the most recent thinking about the fall of the bronze age. It even has its own Wikipedia page here that gives a short synopsis of what the book covers.
It is far more fun to read the book, but reviews can give you an idea on whether or not you would enjoy the book. Scott McLemee on The Key give a good and long review of this book. Guy D. Middleton on American Journal of Archaeology starts off his review by telling us why this book has been a popular best seller even though it is talking about ancient history of the eastern Mediterranean. This last review is by Steven Karacic of Bryn Mawr College. This book is part of a series by Barry Strauss and some information on this is here
There is a great short video that previews this book on YouTube by Princeton University Press. Here is a lecture given by Eric Cline in Maryland. To better understand the history covered in this book, you can read the book and listen to the lecture. Eric Cline also speaks at The Oriental Institute.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
It is far more fun to read the book, but reviews can give you an idea on whether or not you would enjoy the book. Scott McLemee on The Key give a good and long review of this book. Guy D. Middleton on American Journal of Archaeology starts off his review by telling us why this book has been a popular best seller even though it is talking about ancient history of the eastern Mediterranean. This last review is by Steven Karacic of Bryn Mawr College. This book is part of a series by Barry Strauss and some information on this is here
There is a great short video that previews this book on YouTube by Princeton University Press. Here is a lecture given by Eric Cline in Maryland. To better understand the history covered in this book, you can read the book and listen to the lecture. Eric Cline also speaks at The Oriental Institute.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Bush Runner by Mark Bourrie
This book’s full title is Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson by Mark Bourrie. I loved this book. This is a book I got at a Ben McNally Brunch at the King Eddie. These are great events as you get a good breakfast at the King Eddie and hear four authors speak about their books. I have bought a number of books at these events as the most of the speakers are great. The link is here. It is hard to say if there will be more events at this point.
I had heard, of course, about Pierre Radisson in Canadian history, but always in the context of Radisson and Groseilliers. In any Canadian history I took, they never just talked about the adventures of Radisson and that is too bad. In any event, history taught in schools is whitewashed. This book does not whitewash anything. This is history as it should be told and it is fascinating. If history was told as in this book Then maybe students could learn to love history as I do. My love of history goes back to one great history teacher I had in high school.
The stories told about him in this book shows him double-crossing everyone, especially the French, English, and Mohawks. He probably felt he had no choice and he probably didn’t. He is an interesting character who was in North America, Caribbean, France, Holland, and Britain. It is surprising how many times he went from the New World to the Old World and how much he travelled around the New World considering how long these journeys took and how fraught with danger they were.
Most reviews just talk about the travels mentioned in the book. However, you have to read the book to get the full favour of his adventures. Just reading a review of where he went is not that interesting. Mark Bourrie writes an exciting tale about his adventures, so it is well worth reading. Michael Taube gives a review of this book in the Washington Times. This is a more interesting review by Dave Waddell in the Windsor Star as the reviewer talks to Mark Bourrie. James M. Fisher at Miramichi Reader gives an ok review, but it still better to read the book.
The is a podcast interviewing Mark Bourrie on CBC if you do not mind podcasts. Not a bad interview, but podcasts are not my favourite media. Mark Bourrie is interviewed on the Morning Show on Global News.
This is a great Canadian History story and history as it should be told. It is well worth the read.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
I had heard, of course, about Pierre Radisson in Canadian history, but always in the context of Radisson and Groseilliers. In any Canadian history I took, they never just talked about the adventures of Radisson and that is too bad. In any event, history taught in schools is whitewashed. This book does not whitewash anything. This is history as it should be told and it is fascinating. If history was told as in this book Then maybe students could learn to love history as I do. My love of history goes back to one great history teacher I had in high school.
The stories told about him in this book shows him double-crossing everyone, especially the French, English, and Mohawks. He probably felt he had no choice and he probably didn’t. He is an interesting character who was in North America, Caribbean, France, Holland, and Britain. It is surprising how many times he went from the New World to the Old World and how much he travelled around the New World considering how long these journeys took and how fraught with danger they were.
Most reviews just talk about the travels mentioned in the book. However, you have to read the book to get the full favour of his adventures. Just reading a review of where he went is not that interesting. Mark Bourrie writes an exciting tale about his adventures, so it is well worth reading. Michael Taube gives a review of this book in the Washington Times. This is a more interesting review by Dave Waddell in the Windsor Star as the reviewer talks to Mark Bourrie. James M. Fisher at Miramichi Reader gives an ok review, but it still better to read the book.
The is a podcast interviewing Mark Bourrie on CBC if you do not mind podcasts. Not a bad interview, but podcasts are not my favourite media. Mark Bourrie is interviewed on the Morning Show on Global News.
This is a great Canadian History story and history as it should be told. It is well worth the read.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Monday, May 4, 2020
Boom and Bust by Quinn and Turner
This book’s full title is Boom and Bust: A global History of Financial Bubbles by William Quinn and John D. Turner. Since there are no reviews that I can find, I will proceed differently on this review than on others that I have made. I was given an advance copy of this book in PDF form to read.
You can find information on William Quinn here. Information on John D. Turner is here. Neither seems to have any presence online in the form of videos. Both are on Twitter. William Quinn is found here and John Turner is on found here.
Reading about the problems that Britain had in 1825, you have to wonder if governments and their agencies have learned anything from past crisis. It would appear not. Britain’s handling of the banking crisis and the damage to Latin America was awful in the instability it caused for a long time. Yes, the crisis changed some things, but similar things are still happening.
This book has been written at a good time. The basic cause of the severe 1930 Depression was that people stopped spending. You got to wonder if this will happen once Covid 19 restrictions are lifted. A lot of people have suffered with job losses and lack of money. Who knows what this flu will do in the future and what he government reaction will be? We might have a severe depression if people are reluctant to spend money and to go out when the restrictions are lifted.
I am interested in investing. I do it for a living now, but I have been investing for some time and love reading books on economics and history. This book about economic history is the sort that does appeal to me. That is why I accepted a copy in return for a review. I agreed to read this book and if I like it, I would put a review on my blog and on Good Reads.
One of the things they talk about is market speculation. It would seem that a number of times people have treated the stock market as a casino. I invest for the long term, but I belong to some investment clubs and some do talk about speculation and others talk about investing. Some in the investment clubs, especially the one via meetup are doing day trading. This must be the ultimate in stock market speculation.
We probably all remember the real estate bubble in the US. The real estate bubble also affected Spain and England. You can read about this bubble in this book as it will make most of it understandable to people who are not interested in economics. We can still see the aftermath of that bubble. There is a news item on YouTube that talks about abandoned houses in USA. Here is another video on abandoned houses on YouTube in USA. There is an article about abandoned places in Spain on Quartz.
Most of the bubble situations talked about in the book I had heard of before, including the UK Railway Mania. But I have always been fascinated by UK Railway Mania bubble. Whenever I have read about the building of railways, it seems that shareholder did not make any money from investing in them. I live in Canada, and when it was decided we could not afford to build one railway from coast to coast, we decided to build two. Yes, I know how this sounds, but this is Canada and Canadian history. Our main railways of today, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, are currently doing just fine for their shareholders. Some things do change.
I believe the first Railways were built in England. I know that problems can arise when you are the first to use new technology. But according to the author, a bubble is started by politics and/or technology. Also, the authors say to have a bubble you need Speculation, Marketability and Money Credit. Then you have a bubble triangle. The authors also talked about why some bubbles caused economic problems and why others did not.
There certainly was speculation going on with the Railway Mania in England. There was lot of excitement because of the building of railways. Lots of petitions to parliament to authorize the building of different railway lines. As the share prices rose, it attracted lots of money, not only from the upper classes, but from the middle and lower classes. The media also had their hand in building excitement for railway shares. Speculators hoped to flip their shares before more capital was called up by the railways.
Marketability has to do, in the case of the Railway Mania case, the granting of corporate charters and the trading of shares. Parliament became more liberal in granting corporate charters to railway companies. The MPs had an electoral incentive to promote the interest of their local constituency. During the mania 15 new stock exchanges opened. So, it was very easy for people to buy and sell shares in the companies.
The last of the bubble triangle is Money Credit. There did not seemed to be much in the way of investors borrowing to buy shares. They really did not need to as investor were issued share certificates. They put some money down and were expected to answer future calls for capital. The down payment on the shares was at first 10% and then it was lowered to 5%. So really, leverage was built into the buying of shares.
So, there you have it. The Railway Mania in England provided all the ingredients for a bubble to form. Now you can get the book and see why this particular bubble caused economic problems for Britain.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
You can find information on William Quinn here. Information on John D. Turner is here. Neither seems to have any presence online in the form of videos. Both are on Twitter. William Quinn is found here and John Turner is on found here.
Reading about the problems that Britain had in 1825, you have to wonder if governments and their agencies have learned anything from past crisis. It would appear not. Britain’s handling of the banking crisis and the damage to Latin America was awful in the instability it caused for a long time. Yes, the crisis changed some things, but similar things are still happening.
This book has been written at a good time. The basic cause of the severe 1930 Depression was that people stopped spending. You got to wonder if this will happen once Covid 19 restrictions are lifted. A lot of people have suffered with job losses and lack of money. Who knows what this flu will do in the future and what he government reaction will be? We might have a severe depression if people are reluctant to spend money and to go out when the restrictions are lifted.
I am interested in investing. I do it for a living now, but I have been investing for some time and love reading books on economics and history. This book about economic history is the sort that does appeal to me. That is why I accepted a copy in return for a review. I agreed to read this book and if I like it, I would put a review on my blog and on Good Reads.
One of the things they talk about is market speculation. It would seem that a number of times people have treated the stock market as a casino. I invest for the long term, but I belong to some investment clubs and some do talk about speculation and others talk about investing. Some in the investment clubs, especially the one via meetup are doing day trading. This must be the ultimate in stock market speculation.
We probably all remember the real estate bubble in the US. The real estate bubble also affected Spain and England. You can read about this bubble in this book as it will make most of it understandable to people who are not interested in economics. We can still see the aftermath of that bubble. There is a news item on YouTube that talks about abandoned houses in USA. Here is another video on abandoned houses on YouTube in USA. There is an article about abandoned places in Spain on Quartz.
Most of the bubble situations talked about in the book I had heard of before, including the UK Railway Mania. But I have always been fascinated by UK Railway Mania bubble. Whenever I have read about the building of railways, it seems that shareholder did not make any money from investing in them. I live in Canada, and when it was decided we could not afford to build one railway from coast to coast, we decided to build two. Yes, I know how this sounds, but this is Canada and Canadian history. Our main railways of today, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, are currently doing just fine for their shareholders. Some things do change.
I believe the first Railways were built in England. I know that problems can arise when you are the first to use new technology. But according to the author, a bubble is started by politics and/or technology. Also, the authors say to have a bubble you need Speculation, Marketability and Money Credit. Then you have a bubble triangle. The authors also talked about why some bubbles caused economic problems and why others did not.
There certainly was speculation going on with the Railway Mania in England. There was lot of excitement because of the building of railways. Lots of petitions to parliament to authorize the building of different railway lines. As the share prices rose, it attracted lots of money, not only from the upper classes, but from the middle and lower classes. The media also had their hand in building excitement for railway shares. Speculators hoped to flip their shares before more capital was called up by the railways.
Marketability has to do, in the case of the Railway Mania case, the granting of corporate charters and the trading of shares. Parliament became more liberal in granting corporate charters to railway companies. The MPs had an electoral incentive to promote the interest of their local constituency. During the mania 15 new stock exchanges opened. So, it was very easy for people to buy and sell shares in the companies.
The last of the bubble triangle is Money Credit. There did not seemed to be much in the way of investors borrowing to buy shares. They really did not need to as investor were issued share certificates. They put some money down and were expected to answer future calls for capital. The down payment on the shares was at first 10% and then it was lowered to 5%. So really, leverage was built into the buying of shares.
So, there you have it. The Railway Mania in England provided all the ingredients for a bubble to form. Now you can get the book and see why this particular bubble caused economic problems for Britain.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Friday, May 1, 2020
Upheaval by Jared Diamond
This book’s full title is Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond. I enjoyed the chapter on Finland the most. This is because I have read so little on Finland. I read history all the time, but have seldom come across much on Finland. All I knew about Finland was that it was suppressed by the Soviets until the upheaval of in the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s.
Anand Giridharadas on New York Times pretty much sums up what is wrong with this book. Basically, it is the thesis that the way humans deal with crisis might teach something to countries. However, I did enjoy this book. Jared Diamond’s thesis may not be true, but he is an interesting writer and you can learn from reading his books.
I do think that there are lessons to be learned by looking at the history of other countries and how they handle their crisis. Colin Kidd at the The Guardian follows this approach in his review of the book. I also liked the reviews on Good Reads. It seemed me the one from Bill Gates was prominent. He talks about the Finnish chapter. He also like it because he also knew little about Finland.
Jared Diamond speaks at a Politics and Prose event at George Washington University on 5 October 2019. There is a short video by Jared Diamond at Little, Brown and Company about this book. This is another short video with Jared Diamond talking to Bill Gates on Gates Notes. From this site you can also download a chapter to read. Jared Diamond does a Ted Talk at the Lavin Agency Site.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
Anand Giridharadas on New York Times pretty much sums up what is wrong with this book. Basically, it is the thesis that the way humans deal with crisis might teach something to countries. However, I did enjoy this book. Jared Diamond’s thesis may not be true, but he is an interesting writer and you can learn from reading his books.
I do think that there are lessons to be learned by looking at the history of other countries and how they handle their crisis. Colin Kidd at the The Guardian follows this approach in his review of the book. I also liked the reviews on Good Reads. It seemed me the one from Bill Gates was prominent. He talks about the Finnish chapter. He also like it because he also knew little about Finland.
Jared Diamond speaks at a Politics and Prose event at George Washington University on 5 October 2019. There is a short video by Jared Diamond at Little, Brown and Company about this book. This is another short video with Jared Diamond talking to Bill Gates on Gates Notes. From this site you can also download a chapter to read. Jared Diamond does a Ted Talk at the Lavin Agency Site.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.
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