Hard work and cold winters, or how Britain & America took over the economic world

I have not studied history, economics or politics since I was 12 years old, my focus at the time was on science and trying to make the New Zealand cricket team. So when a friend lent me The Wealth and Poverty of Nations I was worried it would assume prior study referenced knowingly in a "as Johnson wrote in his 1872 treatise" fashion. Fortunately this book does not require prior reading, just as well as it's a long haul on it's own, covering the economic development and shifts in wealth that shaped the modern world.

History is written by the winners and historical works have to point out reasons the other side lost, however this book is not a one sided take on the failures of others, the crimes of English sailors receive as much attention as the bloody colonization of South America by Spain.

Making broad conclusions about one culture's "performance" vs another is a sensitive topic at best and David Landes is careful to strike a neutral tone when showing how various points in time India, China, England, Spain, Holland and Portugal dominated parts, if not all of trade. Yet all but Britain (and later America) let it slip. Weather, disease, free trade, religious tolerance, government control, greed... some or all were factors in great nations fall from prominence and most of the time the decline was self inflicted. Spain and Portugal only took, they never built. China was unified yet unable to tolerate progress and was passed by, while India was too hot and divided internally, the aristocracy preferring to make alliances with foreign powers than with each other.

The role of winter was new to me. Long cold spells of weather killed off disease annually and let the industry and merchant class work longer with higher output. Many countries see snow however so it is untrue to say "they only made it because of the weather." Other nations had the advantage, notably Spain, however once the economic needle of the world shifted to industrial output Britain had a well established model ready to take over the world, and did.

The The Art Of Learning - Josh Waitzkin (from Searching For Bobby Fischer)

Josh Waitzkin was the child every parent wanted their kid to be; gifted beyond belief yet normal, a national champion chess player who liked playing with his friends. The fascinating take-away from The Art Of Learning is not that someone so brilliant exists, our television is full of such people, it's that young people can still find a balance between achieving great things in the public eye while remaining humble and likeable.

The theme of the book is not achieving greatness or winning championships. His achievements are just sub plots as Waitzkin explores his philosophy on childhood, purpose, influences, incremental growth, life lessons, martial arts and yes, chess. The narrative moves around a little, however there are three time periods around which he builds his tale; learning chess as a child, sudden fame after "Searching For Bobby Fischer" and finally walking away from chess to become a world champion at Tai Chi "Push Hands".

When I picked this book up I assumed it would be all about chess, which I am not interested in, but thankfully the story is about a very good chess player and his growth and philosophies in life. It is different from what I would normally read, which may explain why I liked it so much.

Review: NurtureShock (stop what you're doing and read this book)

Books that truly challenge how a reader thinks about a topic are rare and a book with the potential to alter our behavior is rarer still. NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children is of the second type and it challenges us in an area people are often the most sensitive to receiving advice, how to raise our children.

Each chapter of very well researched content throws another curveball at the reader. Think the baby next door talked earlier because he was smart? Read on. My little angel would never think lying is harmless, think again. Oh and it's probably best to read the chapter on accelerator classes before you fork over for that exclusive private creche. Your child's IQ will drop 15 points for every thirty minutes less sleep they get per night, what?! Some of the research will shock you but if you're anything like me you'll be grateful for the knowledge this book contains and will start recommending it to friends and family (who will be sensitive about receiving advice on how to raise their children).

Some personal experimentation: at time of reading we had a four month old baby and we decided to experiment with some research given on what makes some kids talk earlier than others. Instead of simply playing with the baby, putting on the odd DVD and letting nature take it's course, we followed a technique from the book. The idea is that you lean in and "talk" to the baby, before backing off to allow the baby to respond. Babies learn that there is value in the sounds they make and start to make more of them. We found very quickly that Joseph would respond after 5-10 seconds, no matter how often we repeated the trick. Maybe he's just a natural chatterbox but I doubt it, before we started playing this game our doctor said "too quiet" and now we're told he's very outgoing and engaging. Maybe there is another explanation but we tried one approach and are really happy with the result.

You don't need to have a newborn to get something from this book. Every parent, or person who interacts with children in some way will learn something new, each chapter is just that good. I first picked the book up thinking child psychology was a waste of time, better to just focus on being "good parents" - now I find myself recommending it to everyone I know. 10/10.

Welcome

Hi and welcome to the Fifty Books Project blog. I will fifty books, roughly one per week in 2011. I'm doing this to get me out of the habits of wasting time on the internet and only ready books in a narrow domain when I do make the effort.

So here it is, 50 books in 52 weeks with the following categories to make sure I broaden my mind at least a little bit

• 2 on philosophy
• 2 on advances in technology
• 2 on economics or economic history
• 2 About business / business-development
• 2 about software development
• 2 about education and teaching
• 2 about graphic design
• 3 on spiritual/physical self help
• 3 about entrepreneurship and investing
• 5 on history or social sciences
• 5 on science/mathematics
• 5 biographies / autobiographies
• 15 on anything else (includes the above categories once I've hit the number).

OK, lets get started.

Eat Drink and Be Healthy, by Walter Millet

Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating is an ambitious book, aiming to change the dietary habits of western people. It takes apart the healthy food pyramid we are taught as children and shows how much the we hold as sacred truth is at the root of health problems spreading through our society. Like any self improvement book we are given a new model, for example instead of "all fats are bad" we are shown how and why mono-unsaturated fats such as those found in a Mediterranean diet fats is essential to our ongoing health.

The book goes into a similar level of detail for carbohydrates, vitamins, protein... any aspect of our diet which can be analyzed gets examined. As someone who's never really broken down what I eat past "try not to have too many french fries" it was interesting to learn how each food and mineral benefits or potentially harms me.

The ultimate aim of this book is to replace our unhealthy diets with a new model and there are several recipes included to help get you started. The few we tried out were pretty good, but if you're not quite ready to replace prime rib with pine nuts, there are still some low hanging fruit you can mix into your diet with little or no extra effort. For example we replaced regular rice with and pasta with whole grain "brown equivalents. Not only does the end result taste better, the old "post heavy carb lunch" energy drops have vanished. Easy wins like this make it worth reading this book alone.

A key indicator that the ideas in a book are valuable is when other causes and authors pick adapt them and create their own movements. The recent popularity surge of the "slow carb diet" led by lifestyle guru Tim Ferris in The Four Hour Body has it's roots in Eat Drink and Be Healthy.

I recommend giving this book a try. 8/10.