Book Reviews

tl;dr: Chinese leaders are pragmatists.

Me after hearing the recommendation and starting the book. Me after reading the book. Maybe I read it wrong, should have evaluated the book on a more meta level. Perhaps it was a commentary on the limits of print media, or the author’s own lack of context and each flaw was a way to break us out of our traditional media consumption stupor. But no… it was just bad.

I was waiting for statistical support of the authors apparent thesis that traders are dumb. It never came.

As good as everyone says it is. Don’t let the weird looking cover put you off. Go read it now. If you don’t believe me, go watch the trailer for the movie, then read the book.

Meh. The commentary on the state of capitalism was much better captured in Capital in the 21st Century, and there were very few ideas not already introduced in the first book. I found the antagonists annoyingly single-dimensional, and nothing in the book was really interesting in the way that the first book was.

Book 1: ‘Gravity’ with the ISS and an astroid. 4 Stars. Book 2: BSG in LEO. 2 stars. Book 3: Red vs. Blue, Earth Gulch Chronicles. 2 stars. My advice? Put the book down as soon as the X-37 shows up. You’ll thank me later.

“I see a lot of US companies sending professional managers to China. They are making their boss in the US happy, but not the Chinese customer.” Every tech giant needs a book, and this is the first book that seems to offer a reasonable picture of Alibaba. Unlike most tech-business-history books ([b:Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal|18656827|Hatching Twitter A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal|Nick Bilton|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1381332539s/18656827.jpg|25670400], [b:The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World|7518289|The Facebook Effect The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World|David Kirkpatrick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1429970841s/7518289.jpg|9732949], [b:Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!|22608584|Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!|Nicholas Carlson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1409613156s/22608584.jpg|42098563] and [b:The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon|17660462|The Everything Store Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon|Brad Stone|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1365394361s/17660462.jpg|24650037]), this book is written by somebody who was an employee at Alibaba rather than a journalist, which makes the book a much more enjoyable read. This gives Erisman the ability to reach beyond the narratives of disgruntled employees and mostly avoid the rumors and gossip that make it into most official accounts. Erisman also sidesteps an uncomfortable phenomenon whereby western authors whitewash their interactions with Chinese counterparts in order to maintain good relations after publishing (Such as [b:On China|9328314|On China|Henry Kissinger|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347773649s/9328314.jpg|14211568]). ...

The best book I’ve read on digital activism, and the best book I’ve read in 2015. Parker focuses on heart wrenching stories that take place in China, Russia, and Cuba, and details in an unparalleled way the human element of online activists. I don’t know how else to put it, but Parker gets it. She the understands the cultural context in which activism is taking place, and does a good job in explaining how activism leads to non-uniform results that are heavily dependant on the personalities of the members involved and constraints of the societies in which they live. ...

A dangerous simplification. The author claims that power is diluting due to revolutions happening in the areas of More, Mobility, and Mentality. This is a grand claim and a nice alliteration, but I would expect solid evidence and a robust framework to back it up. Naim does not deliver. More - [b:Capital in the 21st century|22676427|Capital in the 21st century|Thomas Piketty|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|26224121] does a very good job of how economic inequality is growing and likely to continue. While Piketty doesn’t try to forge a link between wealth and power, I feel comfortable arguing that the gini index of power is likely associated with the gini index of wealth. Naim neither establishes an equivalent metric, nor addresses this trend at all. ...

Schnier is at his finest when he describes the extent and exploits of the U.S. Government surveillance, and I think the first few chapters of this book are probably the best summary of the landscape of digital snooping. He pins a national internet blackout in Syria on U.S. actions, and quotes the NSA director as saying “we kill people based on metadata.” Scary, right? When Schnier starts to talk about topics that I know a little more about, he seems out of his depth. In the corporate world, he conflates having the technical ability to do something with actually doing it, and draws some incredibly erroneous conclusions as a result (-1 star). The way he talked about politics and counter-terrorism struck me as naive. (-1 star). ...