The Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman

This book’s full title is The Storm Before the Calm: America’s Discord, The Coming Crisis of the 2020’s and the Triumph Beyond. George Friedman believes in cycles. A lot of historians do as do some people in finance. I think that they have good reasons to do so. It is not that are cycles are the same. Sometimes there are similarities and sometimes not.

George Friedman talks about America reinvesting itself. It has done so in the past and will do so in the future. I believe this also. When you think of the conflict with China, this is the one thing that stands out. America can reinvest itself. China has cycles too, but they all involve having an emperor. Mao was an emperor as is the current president of China Xi Jinping. China has a deep long history. China has often fallen apart and put itself back together again. However, it always has an emperor.

I find George Friedman an original thinker and I enjoyed reading his book. I believe in historical cycles but it can be debated if Friedman has gotten it right by his cycles. The US is certainly polarized at the present and I believe that the US will reinvent itself. I have no idea how this will happen. In any event, George Friedman is always an interesting read. So read this if you want an interesting take on what is happening in the US.

I am not surprised that there are a lot of critical reviews of this book. At the present time it seems that American cannot agree on anything. I live in Canada and we also have a lot of the same problems in agreeing, especially politically. It is not just discord. People just seem to hate and feel people who think differently, especially politically are on the evil side. It is too bad this has occurred. The problem with this is that people are shut up. This is why the voting for Trump was not noted. You can shut people up, but the vote is secret.

Glenn Altschuler on Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a rather critical view of this book. There is another critical review by David Wineberg at San Francisco. There is a less critical, but interesting review at Kirkus Reviews. A blogger on Deviant Art give a full review of this book. Some of it is critical and some not. Andrew Sheng at The Edge Markets also does an interesting and full review of this book..

The last video in this list is the most interesting with an interview by Jim Falk even though it is the longest one. George Friedman gives a short speech at Sweeney Agency. The shorten free interview podcast on Financial Sense give a good sense of what this book is about. Chief Economist Bart van Ark of the Conference Board’ interviews George Friedman. This last video is where George Friedman is interviewed by Jim Falk for World Affairs Council of Dallas, Fort Worth.

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.