Book Bits: 14 September 2024

● Punishing Putin: Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia
Stephanie Baker
Interview with author via Marketplace.org
Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been cut off from much of the global economy, with over 20,000 sanctions and other restrictions in place, according to Stephanie Baker, an investigative reporter at Bloomberg News. Companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks have pulled out. A coalition of countries have agreed to a price cap for Russian oil in the hopes of reducing the country’s energy revenue. Never before has an economy the size of Russia’s been targeted by so many sanctions, but are those sanctions working? Baker, author of the new book “Punishing Putin: Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia,” says it depends on your definition of success.

● Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
Yuval Noah Harari
Review via The Economist
Let Truth and falsehood grapple,” argued John Milton in “Areopagitica”, a pamphlet published in 1644 defending the freedom of the press. Such freedom would, he admitted, allow incorrect or misleading works to be published, but bad ideas would spread anyway, even without printing—so better to allow everything to be published and let rival views compete on the battlefield of ideas. Good information, Milton confidently believed, would drive out bad: the “dust and cinders” of falsehood “may yet serve to polish and brighten the armory of truth”.
Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli historian, lambasts this position as the “naive view” of information in a timely new book.

● Richer and More Equal: A New History of Wealth in the West
Daniel Waldenström
Summary via publisher (Polity)
Once there were princes and peasants and very few between. The extremes of wealth and poverty are still with us, but that shouldn’t blind us to the fact our societies have been utterly transformed for the better over the past century. As Daniel Waldenström makes clear in this authoritative account of wealth accumulation and inequality in the modern west, we are today both significantly richer and more equal. Using cutting-edge research and new, sometimes surprising, data, Waldenström shows that what stands out since the late 1800s is a massive rise in the size of the middle class and its share of society’s total wealth. Unfettered capitalism, it seems, doesn’t have to lead to boundless inequality.

● Nature, Culture, and Inequality: A Comparative and Historical Perspective
Thomas Piketty
Q&A with author via The Harvard Gazette
Q: You write that inequality is not the result of economics or technological change, but is rooted in ideology and politics. How so and why is it important to understand its roots — how does that aid in its dismantling?
A: What I do in this book is take a very long-run look at the inequality regime in a comparative perspective. I define “inequality regime” as the justification [used] for the structure of inequality and also the institutions — the legal system, the educational system, the fiscal system — that help sustain a certain level of equality or inequality in a given society. I look at the history of this inequality regime over a very long run, across many countries and regions of the world, and what I first observed is a lot of variation over time. You see very fast transformation, sometimes due to revolution, [like] the French Revolution. But also, Sweden used to be a very unequal country until the beginning of the 20th century. And then, following a very large social mobilization by trade unions and the Social Democratic party, Sweden became one of the most equal countries in history. You could say the U.S., after the Great Depression, also turned to a very progressive tax system and reduced its inequality enormously.

● Trading Composure: Mastering Your Mind for Trading Success
Yvan Byeajee
Summary via publisher (Wiley)
Embark on a transformative journey with Trading Composure: Mastering Your Mind for Trading Success. Supported by paradigm-shifting exercises, case studies, and personal anecdotes from successful career trader and trading psychology coach Yvan Byeajee, readers will learn how to befriend uncertainty and build a trading psychology edge amidst the market’s dynamic dance. Whether you’re a newbie trader or a seasoned one, this insightful read will reshape your trading perspective and help you deliver tangible results

● Atlas of Finance: Mapping the Global Story of Money
Dariusz Wojcik, et al.
Summary via publisher (Yale U. Press)
A unique illustrated exploration of the development of finance that combines data from every part of the world and covers five thousand years of history. From the emergence of money in the ancient world to today’s interconnected landscape of high-frequency trading and cryptocurrency, the story of finance has always taken place on an international stage. Finance is one of the most globalized and networked of human activities, and one of the most important social technologies ever invented. This volume, the first visually based book dedicated to finance, uses graphics and maps to bring the complex and abstract world of finance down to earth, showing how geography is fundamental for understanding finance, and vice versa.

● Human + Machine, Updated and Expanded: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI
Paul R. Daugherty and H. James Wilson
Essay by authors via Harvard Business Review
Generative artificial intelligence is expected to radically transform all kinds of jobs over the next few years. No longer the exclusive purview of technologists, AI can now be put to work by nearly anyone, using commands in everyday language instead of code. According to our research, most business functions and more than 40% of all U.S. work activity can be augmented, automated, or reinvented with gen AI. The changes are expected to have the largest impact on the legal, banking, insurance, and capital-market sectors—followed by retail, travel, health, and energy.
For organizations and their employees, this looming shift has massive implications. In the future many of us will find that our professional success depends on our ability to elicit the best possible output from large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT—and to learn and grow along with them. To excel in this new era of AI-human collaboration, most people will need one or more of what we call “fusion skills”—intelligent interrogation, judgment integration, and reciprocal apprenticing.

Please note that the links to books above are affiliate links with Amazon.com and James Picerno (a.k.a. The Capital Spectator) earns money if you buy one of the titles listed. Also note that you will not pay extra for a book even though it generates revenue for The Capital Spectator. By purchasing books through this site, you provide support for The Capital Spectator’s free content. Thank you!