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.