How Europe is Indebted to the Sikhs? by Bhupinder Singh Holland

This book is mainly about two things. The Battle of Ieper (Ypres Salient) in WWI and the celebration of Sikhs Martyrs of WWI in Ieper (Ypres) in November 2002.

It is an interesting piece of European History. There were an incredible number of nationalist in the Armies of Britain and France. More than 30 nationalists were represented in the Ypres Salient in the troops that fought there. The British and French had colonies and their armies reflected this fact.

The French army had Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, Senegalesians and other West Africans. They also had troops from French Guyana and laborers from Indochina, the Ammanites.

In the British army, first there were the Dominion’s of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The British Indian army would have troops from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Nepal. Other parts of the British Empire sent troops and laborers. These places would include such places as Egypt, the Caribbean, Bermuda, and the Fiji Island. When you think of the Great War, you think about Europeans fighting, but this is simply not true.

The book gives whole chapters towards talking about the Sikhs. It talks about hair, beards and moustaches. It also talks a bit about the philosophy of the Sikhs.

I think that this book might be of great interest in Sikhs tracing their families (i.e. Genealogy). This book has chapters listing the Sikh dead of WWI in both Belgium and France.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Singh. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

Common Wealth by Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs has a web site at Columbia. For a partial review of this book, see Marginal Revolution and review by Tyler Cowen. Also, see this book in 79 slides at slideshare.net. And, to get a more complete book review, check out Guardian.

For a lecture by Jeffrey Sachs, see YouTube item under Authors@Google.

Jeffrey Sachs is a rich socialist. I guess he says some interesting things. He talks how well the Nordic socialist states are doing. He sort of thinks other states can copy, but I wonder. I think the main reason that socialism works in the Nordic state is lack of corruption. I think that this is cultural and I doubt if other states can do this. It is not just that the Nordic states have ethnic homogeneity. France has this too and it is far more corrupt.

I first time I really realized the difference between England and France as far as corruption goes was with the Profumo Affair. This happen in 1963, so it was a long time ago; but I was young and not conscience really about such things as corruption. In this affair, the UK Secretary of State for War had an affair with reputed mistress of an alleged Russian spy. Being Canadian, I was horrified, as seemed the UK public. However, the French just seem to shrug their shoulders and say, “it happens”.

I also do not think that we humans do things until we are really forced to. In Canada, we still have the problem that the poor go to poor schools. It is just not the problem of money. It is the problem of having the will to change things.

I do not think he really has solutions for changing our world. The poor in lots of places are getting richer and living better probably not because of rich western socialists, but probably in spite of them. Well, at least he is thinking about things. I, in fact, have faith in mankind. I think that we will figure things out and with the poor getting richer, we will have a bright future.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Sachs. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

The Smart Swarm by Peter Miller

This is a really delightful and informative book. It is all about how insects and birds act in groups and how these groups get things done.

A single ant or bee isn't smart, but their colonies are. There is a study on Swarm Intelligence. See Wikipedia entry at Swarm Intelligence. What they are looking at is collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems. It is being applied to the development of robots. When applied to robots 'swarm intelligence' refers to the more general set of algorithms used to control robots. There is another good article on this at Carleton on this subject.

The monstrous Orcs in The Lord of the Rings coordinated their movements as a marauding army by following simple rules of interaction. These rules were developed by the study of a flock of starlings. If you saw this movie you would see how complex action was delivered from very simple rules. The rules were:

• Stay close to other Orcs
• Don't bump into other Orcs
• Head in the same direction as the Orc throng
• If you run into any humans - cut them in half with your sword"

On YouTube, you can see a very short animated video talking about swarms and what they can tell us at
YouTube.

There are a couple of quite detailed reviews on this book. One is at Business Pundit and another good one at Mission to Learn called Lessons from the Swarm by Jeff Cobb

Peter Miller is a senior editor at National Geographic. There are a couple of interesting articles here by Peter Miller. See Field Notes on the National Geographic site. There is also an older article on swarms by Peter Miller on the National Geographic site

There is also an interesting video of how Art Colonies work by Deborah Gordon. See YouTube site. This is rather long at just over an hour.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Miller. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

The Father of Us All by Victor Davis Hanson

The full title is The Father of Us All – War and History – Ancient and Modern. This book is a series of essays that Victor Hanson wrote on war. He has an entry in Wikipedia. There is a review of sorts on this book at PRODOS Film Study Group.

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Sanford University and a professor of classics emeritus at California State University, Fresno. His web site is at Victor Hanson.com and at VDH’s Private Papers.

He talks how the Greeks had rules for war, they had truces and they had plays on the insanity of war, but still they went on fighting with each other. Thucydides says that wars were fought for reasons of honour, self-interest, fear, anger and pride. Others have said we fight over ideas, perceptions, fear, honour and grievances. Today, we want to give different reasons for war. However, if we were really honest with ourselves I think we would come to the same conclusions that wars today are fought for the same sort of reasons.

There are a lot of people today that think that war has changed. It has appeared to change because we fight differently. However, there is no good evidence that people had changed at all. We like to think that we are more peace loving. We have lots of people pushing conflict resolution. But have we really changed? Are humans today really different?

The Greeks felt that some wars were good and some were bad. For example, the Persian wars were good because the Greeks were fighting for their freedom. The Peloponnesian war was bad because Greeks were fighting Greeks. Today we tend to think that all wars are bad, but is this right?

There is an hour video on YouTube called Conversations with History. This is an interview with See Victor Hanson. There is also a video with Victor Hanson talking about this book. See Book TV for a short version. For a long version at Book TV.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Hanson. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

The Rise and Fall of Communism by Archie Brown

The way communism was to work was people received what they needed and contributed what they could. Problem with this is that it does not work. Why would you work when you saw that others did not, but got the same things as you did? I remember one Russian worker at the fall of communism say, “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us”. See an entry on Wikipedia on Russian Jokes .

Our North American Indians practiced such a policy of people contributing what they can and getting back what they need. However, these were small groups of people and they deeply depended on each other to survive. If not everyone contributed then the group would not survive. They also need to take care of members of the group so the group would survive.

Brown starts off with philosophical beginnings of the communist creed and traces communism to its down fall. I think that it fell because not everyone wants the same thing. That seemed to be the philosophy of communism that everyone got the same things. Of course, this is not what really happened; the leaders and the elite lived much better than the masses. A lot of people wanted to escape. This seemed to be the reason for the downfall of communism.

There were lots of good reasons people had to try and improve the lot of the common man. Karl Marx said a lot of interesting things. I think in the west that we ignore a lot of the stuff he said to our philosophical detriment. He was thinking of a better future of the lot of the common man. He was wrong in how to better the lot of the common man, but that does not take away the fact that he said interesting things and was a great thinker. There is a biography on Karl Max on Wikipedia . There is another great article on him at The History Guide under Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History.

For a good book review, see The Telegraph . You can see part of a lecture by Archie Brown about this book on Book TV and another short interview at YouTube.
There is a lot of interesting videos on YouTube about the fall of communism. See YouTube. This is about the Fall of Communism – 1991 giving news as it happens. There are 6 parts to this newscast. Also, there is a YouTube documentary on the Soviet loss of control over Eastern Europe. See YouTube. There is also a documentary on the Ceausescu execution in 1989 on YouTube.

This may be a long book at over 700 pages, but it is an easy and enjoyable read. We are so lucky nowadays because not only can we read books available, but we can also see lectures by our authors on the internet and see lots of information on the internet about any subject we can to read about.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Brown. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

The full title of this book is Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the rich teach their kids about money – that the poor and middle class do not. Also, Sharon L. Lechter was involved in writing this book.

This is the second time I have read this book. It is quite interesting. Although, I have not bought and sold real estate to make money, I have spent time building up the assets side of my balance sheet. The other thing I like about this book is when he talks about a house being a liability not an asset. I do believe this. There are good reasons to buy a house, but buying it and considering it an asset is not a good idea. Houses costs lots of money and are a cash drain.

I have not always paid myself first as this book suggests (and other people do to). Live has it ups and downs and this is not always possible. During my working life, I worked for a company that was bought out (and I lost my job) and company that went bankrupt (and I lost my job). I have also worked for companies that downsized and most of the time I was ok, but it was touch and go for a while. I also had my husband die and leave me with a small child to look after. At the worst of times, I may not have saved money, but I always did my best to live within my means.

The other thing I liked about this book was Robert talking about risk. He says you do not avoid it, what you do is manage it. I was never terrified of losing money in an investment. I did that, but I was always somewhat cautious and never lost a lot on one investment.

Another thing I like about Robert’s book is that he says you should work to learn, not work for money. Money can only motivate you so far. In my working life, I took on new jobs because I thought I would learn from the experience and I did. I never regretted this. Although, I must admit that sometimes it was scary to take on a job that had not previously existed, there were benefits. The main benefit being is that you can write you own job description.

There is an interview, in 5 parts, of Robert Kiyosaki interviewed by Philippe Matthews. See
Interview Part 1 , Interview Part 2 and
Interview Part 3 . Once you start with the first interview on youtube, the others should show in the right side bar.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Kiyosaki. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

The Next Decade by George Friedman

This is an absolutely fascinating book. I know a lot about history and I think that this helps to understand some of the issues this author brings up.

If you want to get a good idea of what the future world might look like, this is a very good place to begin to look at the issues. However, this book is very much written from an American viewpoint. It is also written from an old British idea of the best sort of world for the British Empire is a world were the countries in each area have a balance of power. Of course, the way George Friedman writes is that this is the best idea also for the American Empire. That is it is best that the countries in each area have a balance of power.

Let’s face it, China will rise and be a force to be reckon with in the future, I by no means feel that America is doomed in any way. China (and India) produced a large part of the world’s GDP until quite recently. It is not surprising that both these countries would rise up again. However, I think that what the Americans have going for them is the ability to change and innovate.

For a good review of this book, see SFGate. There is another excellent review at Word Press. Also, see an interview on YouTube.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Friedman. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.