At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Title: At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Author: Bill Bryson

Publisher: Doubleday

Pages: 512

ISBN: 0767919386

We study history at a grand level. It is a story of epic events. The rise and fall of empires and kingdoms. The rule and misrule of kings and emperors; their achievements and foibles. Tales of gallantry and treachery. Yet for the vast majority, history is not composed of epic events and struggles. It is personal and intimate. It is a story of parents and grand parents struggles and lessons learned. And it is a story of the personal things that families accrue over a lifetime.

After a grand overview of the history of the universe, Mr. Bryson turns his attention to the other end of the scale: a history of personal life and the things that we take for granted. This story is much more fascinating than the epic tales of rulers and wars because it has a personal resonance. This is a story of origins. A tale of how we came to live in the fashion that we did. It is also a story of people struggling to understand and incorporate new trends, discoveries and things into their lives. Mr. Bryson takes his own house as a representative example and then proceeds from room to room explaining the history behind each room. Not only do we learn how various rooms got the functions that we use them for today, we also learn about the various items that are used in these rooms (and sometimes in the house overall).

Take tea as an example. How should tea be used? It is blindingly obvious to us today but things were a lot murkier for our ancestors who first encountered these strange looking and smelling leaves. There is an endearing tale in the book of a hostess who spread tea leaves on toast and offered it to her guests. Here we see a person struggling to make sense of something strange and exciting.

Electricity is another example. People relied on candle power for thousands of years. The pre-modern lighting world was a lot dimmer than our times. But that apparently did not prevent people from staying up late and having a good time. It seems that many of our ancestors were just as determined party goers as many of us today.

At Home is full of these little intimate details. It turns out that history at the small scale is just as interesting as epic tales of valor and glory. Infact in my view, the small stuff history is more interesting because it is closer to us and hence more intimate, personal and understanding. The book is a great read. Definitely recommended. There are however a few caveats. This book spans several centuries and talks about trends that affected personal life; trends that were spread out over long periods of time. As a result, the book has a tendency to lose focus. At times I started wondering what the relevancy of some of the material was to the concerned chapter. This does not detract from the book which remains a smashing good read.

Infectious Greed

Title: Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Risk Corrupted the Financial Markets
Author: Frank Partnoy
Publisher: PublicAffairs

Pages: 496
ISBN: 978-1586487843

Much has been written about the spectacular financial meltdown of 2007 - 2008. Much will continue to be written about it. We are still experiencing the repercussions of this panic and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. These events have generally been presented to the public as being from a bolt out of the blue. The argument goes that no one could have predicted the meltdown beforehand. It is like a force of nature that appeared suddenly to wreak havoc. Needless to say, these arguments are total nonsense.

An event of this magnitude does not appear out of the blue. There is a build up period which can often be long. Mr. Partnoy's book casts an eye on this build up period by tracing the roots of the current crisis. The financial system plays a critical role in an economy. Under controlled conditions, it helps the economy to grow strongly. However, what happens when the controls are removed?

This experiment has been carried out since Ronald Reagan's presidency. There are two definite consequences to controlling the financial markets (or any other type of market for that matter). One is that there is great stability. The other is that innovation is exceedingly slow. The basic idea behind removing the controls on the financial markets was to increase the pace of innovation in the sector. Under the influence of the Chicago School economists (specially Milton Friedman), it was thought that the sector would police itself effectively since no player can afford loss of reputation since any financial company which loses the confidence of its customers faces the very real possibility of a sudden collapse.


Infectious greed traces what happened when this idea was put into practice. As the book highlights, the pace of innovation amongst financial firms increased dramatically. Radically new financial products and new forms of financial organizations quickly appeared on the scene. Many (but not all) of these products and organizations gave superior returns to their clients. At the same time, greed played a major part both amongst the financial market players and among the clients. Vast bonuses attracted the best minds away from other sectors into a sector whose basic role is that of an intermediary.

While all of this was going on, many "experts" specially among the academia were cheering on these new innovations. The general public which included the business community was assured that these new products made for a better, safer, stronger, less risky financial system. So what if the new products required literally a PhD in Physics and Maths to understand? That just indicated how effective they were in reducing and indeed even eliminating risk. However, unbeknownst to nearly everybody including the financial participants themselves, these new innovations ended up vastly increasing systemic risk. The few dissenting voices were dismissed contemptuously and ignored.


All this is traced out in painstaking detail by Mr. Partnoy. The book highlights the role that greed, hubris, stupidity and arrogance played in creating conditions that inevitably led to the meltdown. The book does not simply trace the contours of the brave new financial world as it was being created. It also makes recommendations to prevent another, perhaps even worse meltdown in the future. The tragedy is that despite the clear warning that this book represents, no lessons seem to have been learned. Definitely a must read if you want to understand the origins of the current financial malaise.

Related articles

• Sloppy market? Blame the Financials (ritholtz.com)
• Leading Economics Bloggers' Outlook Steadily Declines, but They Believe Stimulus Package Helped Fight Unemployment (kauffman.org)

Accidental Branding

Title: Accidental Branding

Author: David Vinjamuri

Publisher: Wiley

Pages: 212

ISBN: 978-0-470-16506-5

Brands are extremely important. We are all agreed on this. Brands give companies higher margins and help to avoid a possibly ruinous price war. Nor are the benefits of brands restricted to companies alone. For consumers, brands are a promise of quality. They don't have to worry about getting ripped off. Brands are also a status symbol and part of personal identity. But the question remains, how are brands formed?

There have been many attempts to answer this question. Business books are full of recommendations on how to create brands. Accidental branding takes a somewhat different tack. It takes a look at brands that have become so fortuitously and tries to identifies the factors that made these brands successful. In a vicious marketplace in which most brands fail, what caused these brands to succeed specially when you consider that they did not follow the usually prescribed methods of branding. A noble objective which unfortunately falls flat on its face. Its as if you think you are going to have a rich dessert but are instead presented with a thin souffle.

Mr. Vinjamuri distills the lessons of these brands early in the book specifically the second chapter. Afterwards case histories of the selected accidental brands are presented. Sadly these histories prove to be insipid and uninspiring. After reading them you realize that you know a little bit about the person involved but you know nothing about what helped him or her develop the brand like they did. Its a eulogy to a personality. Basically a biography. My advice: read the second chapter and ignore the rest. You will get to know the lessons of the book and not waste any time.

Why The West Rules -- For Now

Title: Why The West Rules -- For Now
Author: Ian Morris
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Pages: 768
ISBN: 978-0374290023

Was the rise of the West inevitable or is a historical accident? This has been a question ever since industrialization enabled Western Europe and its American offshoot to dominate the globe on an unprecedented scale and level. Many attempts have been made to answer this question and many more will be made in the future.

Ian Morris' book addresses this question from a different angle. Instead of seeking proximate causes, Mr. Morris takes a sweeping look at history. Nor does he confine his vision to one area of the globe. In order to properly understand the rise of the West and place it in its proper historical perspective, we need to examine other major cultural areas as well and examine what developments were taking place at the same time over there. Apart from politics, other factors like culture, economy and geography also play a role their part and their role needs to be examined as well.

However, there is a problem that needs to be addressed. The major cultural areas of the world had many similarities but also major differences. In order to understand the current dominance of the West, we need to be able to properly compare them. To do that, we need some common bases. This is where Mr. Morris makes his most valuable contribution to the debate. He proposes using an index to compare development between major cultural areas. Admittedly any index proposed is not going to be perfect. But it can always be improved on. And an index no matter what its flaws at least allows for a like to like comparison between very different areas.

So was the rise of the West inevitable? Not really according to the author. Geography gave the West early advantages but many other factors also came into play. Also the East was not necessarily a laggard. As Mr. Morris' index shows, the East and the West developed at roughly the same pace and in approximately the same time frames. Industrialization gave the West an abrupt and massive boost but then the East started to catch up with it. As he points out, in large masses and over long time frames, people in different parts of the world tend to develop at approximately the same rates.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Mr. Morris' detailed analysis, his attempt to construct a development index does help to push the debate forward. Regardless of how one views the merits of the book, this I believe is an important step forward in this debate.

Related articles

• Why the West Rules-For Now (thedailybeast.com)
• Globalization Is Anglofication: (brothersjuddblog.com)
• Why the West Rules - For Now by Ian Morris - review (guardian.co.uk)

Title: Life of Pi
Author: Yann Martel
Publisher: Mariner BooksPages: 326
ISBN: 978-0156027328

An unexpected treat in a well worn category, Life of Pi is a delightful treasure to savor and enjoy. This is the story of a castaway; a genre that has been extensively exploited in books and movies. In a field crowded with masterpieces like Robinson Crusoe and others of the ilk, the question for authors is how to distinguish their particular castaway story.

The author puts our protagonist with a tiger and sets him off on an epic journey across the Pacific. The book is a bit hard to classify. It starts off as something along the lines of Gerald Durrell and then morphs into something else entirely.


This is a story of survival. A story of coping with the unexpected. A journey in adversity. It explores themes of despair interspersed with wonder and joy. In many respects a spiritual journey taking place along with a physical one. An unexpectedly gripping book, it is well worth reading.