Friday, February 28, 2025

Accelerated Minds by Neil Seeman

This book’s full title is Accelerated Minds: Unlocking the Fascinating, inspiring, and Often Destructive Impulses that Drives the Entrepreneurial Brain. I found this an interesting book. I can imagine that Entrepreneurs are different as it takes a lot of effort and drive to start a company.

Neal Seeman has his own website here.

There is a short review of this book on Canadian Multicultural News . There is an interesting review of this book on Next Big Idea Club.

Neil Seeman is interviewed by DBoss. The interview starts around 3.18 into the video. This is an interesting video with David Meltzer lasting just over a minute. The author is interviews on by James Black at Canadian Securities Exchange .

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.

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn

This book’s full title is How the World Made the West: a 4,000 Year History. Josephine Quinn is a professor of Ancient History and so she has concentrated on how the Ancient World shaped the Western World. Of course it did.

I also think that West was highly influenced their experience by their discovery of the Americas and their movement to the Americas. Josephine Quinn talks about the discovery of the Americas in a very short few pages at the end of her book. But this is understandable as she is into Ancient History.

Just as the Germanic tribes were forced into the Roman Empire by the Mongol Tribes, Western Europe was forced to go further west first the by Arab Tribes and then Turkish Tribes that took over the Middle East, North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and Balkans. The western history with the Americas may have only been over 500 years compared the 4,000 years of Ancient History, but it is still a long time.

I also have found that few people realize that the Eastern Roman Empire lasted another 1,000 years to 1453 after Rome was no longer the center of the Roman Empire.

There is an interesting review of this book by Steven Poole in the Guardian. There are some interesting reviews at Amazon at the bottom of the page, including one quite negative one. There is an interesting and short review at Kirkus Reviews. Andrew Wilson on TGC I thought has the most thoughtful and enlighten review of this book.

Josephine Quinn at the Jaipur Literature Festival talks about her book. Josephine Quinn is interviewed by William Dalrymple. Josephine Quinn gives a lecture for around 14 minutes. Josephine Quinn is interviewed by Greg LaBlanc.

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, February 5, 2025

Putin’s People by Catherine Belton

This book’s full title is Putin’s People: How the KGB took back Russia and Then Took on the West. I found this book fascinating. I can see from reading this book about Putin in the book why some people depict Putin as similar to a Mafia gang leader. This book was published in 2020.

Daniel Beer on The Guardian writes a good review of this book. The review on The Open Book is from the book blub, but gives you a good idea what the book is about. There is an interesting more recent review of this book and its subject in 2022 by Australian Institute of International Affairs. An article on The Foreign Policy website talks about Catherine Belton and her publisher being sued over this book.

There is a discussion at Atlantic Council. The discussion starts around 4:15 into the video when Catherine Belton talks about her book. It was taped in June 2020. There is a short video interview with Catherine Belton at the British Embassy of Vienna. This is dated October 2022. It is just over 4 minutes.

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.

Thursday, January 2, 2025

The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe

This book’s full title is The Fourth Turning: What the cycles of History Tell Us About American’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. This was a very interesting read and a unique approach to history. However, I have read a lot of history, so I do wonder about their thesis.

It is basically true that people do not change but I doubt you can predict the future from the past. I should also note that Neil Howe has another book out called The Fourth Turning is Here. It seems that people either loved or hated this book. In the reviews you will see that some think it is all nonsense and others think these ideas are great.

The idea of historical cycles is not a new one. If you read anthropology, you will learn that most past societies thought of time as cycler. They lived through repeated cycles of Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. Time as linear is a rather new idea.

I think the most interesting review is by Dan Reardon. There is a review on Good Reads by Justin who clearly did not like the idea of cycles of History either. There are other reviews on this site, some loved the book and others hated it. All the reviews on Amazon are the positive type. The reviews on Quora are mostly all critical of this book. There is also a video review of this book at BookLab by Bjorn.

There is an interview of Neil Howe on the YouTube show of On the Margin. This interview is some 50 minutes long. A review of this book by Van Neistant. outlines the story of this book. It is an interesting review. It is only 10 minutes long.

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.