Book Bits: 6 December 2025

● The Great Heist: China’s Epic Campaign to Steal America’s Secrets
David R. Shedd and Andrew Badger
Summary via publisher (HarperCollins)
Through a coordinated “whole-of-society” strategy, the Chinese Communist Party has dramatically expanded its covert operations to acquire America’s most valuable innovations—stealing defense secrets and proprietary technology from companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Google, T-Mobile, and Tesla. By exploiting both human and cyber vulnerabilities, China has quietly looted the crown jewels of Western technology, saving itself trillions in R&D costs since the 1990s—with an ongoing brazenness fueled by decades of Western inaction. Drawing on exclusive investigations and interviews with intelligence officers, corporate security teams, senior policymakers, and espionage victims, David R. Shedd and Andrew Badger reveal how industrial theft has fueled China’s meteoric rise from Third World backwater to global superpower—and present a bold strategic playbook to turn the tide in the greatest economic contest of our time.

● Can Europe Survive?: The Story of a Continent in a Fractured World
David Marsh
Review via Financial Times
In the face of Donald Trump’s America, internal crises from immigration to economic stagnation, and weak political leadership, Europe is struggling to address the “six Ds:” de-globalisation, demographics, decarbonisation, digitalisation, defence and debt. Can Europe survive?
Yes, says David Marsh — though he is realistic about the challenges ahead. To explore this question, Marsh interviewed 160 serving and former officials and analysts, from Condoleezza Rice to Friedrich Merz, and visited several national archives. The result is a well-written, informative, and enjoyable read. Marsh, a former FT Europe editor, has a journalistic eye for detail, whether describing John Major’s “boyish, almost puppy-like enthusiasm”, Christine Lagarde’s Woman of the Year award or the etymology of Maastricht’s name.

● Money and the Making of the American Revolution
Andrew David Edwards
Summary via publisher (Princeton U. Press)
American money and American democracy have always been in tension, pitting political equality against economic inequality. In Money and the Making of the American Revolution, Andrew David Edwards shows how this struggle emerged in America’s founding era. Everyone knows that the founders waged a revolt against taxation without representation. Edwards shows that the dispute over taxes was really a dispute over money: what it was, who could make it, and how to keep it from being used at the expense of the colonists in North America. The colonial rebels refocused their resistance on democratic, local control—defending the power they had used to make money for themselves.

● The Fairfax Way: Inside Prem Watsa’s Secret to Lasting Success
David Thomas
Summary via publisher (Viking)
Even those who have heard of Prem Watsa and Fairfax Financial probably don’t understand them. The company sprawls across more than 100 countries and is known for its complex finances—so complex, they once attracted a who’s-who of Wall Street short sellers who misread the company as the next Enron and decided it could be profitably pushed into an open grave. The hedge funds even had Bob Dylan lined up to sing at the company’s funeral party. Fairfax stared down regulators and fought back. Dylan never got the chance to sing. In its 39-year history, Fairfax’s annual compound return of 19.2% trounces the S&P 500’s 11.3%. Lately, it is outperforming even Silicon Valley tech stocks and winning back an investor following. It’s time to get to know Fairfax better

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