Books
Niall Ferguson attempts to explain why the West led the world in recent centuries, and what this could mean for the future.
This book explores the history of the British Empire. It considers the changing motivations of the British, the circumstances that led to its pre-eminence, the impact it had on the world, and the nature of its downfall.
Stubborn Attachments is an important and early entry into the renewed genre of progress-motivated capitalism. If you’re sick of the pessimism and cynicism pervasive in today’s culture, give it a read.
Louis Hartz’s fragment thesis is the core argument of this book. Hartz posits that the culture of a colony is a fragment of the culture of the coloniser at the time of colonisation. While both the coloniser and the colonised nations will evolve, the culture of the colonised nation is likely to remain heavily derivative of the coloniser at the time of colonisation. This is because the philosophies of the day tend to be enshrined in the national identity and even constitutions for each new nation, whereas colonisers are less attached to each era of politics.
Some attributes of your body, and therefore mind, more or less malleable than others. When it comes to physical attributes, it’s pretty obvious which attributes you have a high-degree of control over. You can make yourself stronger, but you cannot make yourself taller. When it comes to your personality, taste, attitudes, and mental health, it’s much more difficult to discern.
A short book that serves as a great standalone account of the life and philosophy of Bob Hawke, possibly Australia’s best Prime Minister.
In 1988, English art dealer James Birch exhibited Francis Bacon in the USSR. In this book, Birch tells this story.
Ninety essays from Peter Singer, covering a wide range of topics. An easy read, but with plenty of challenging moral quandaries to consider. Some of my favourite essays are listed below.
Sprint outlines the design sprint workshop format, created by Google Ventures. Design sprints are five-day workshops that guide teams towards product solutions.
This is the best book about Steve Jobs, because it’s built with direct quotes from Steve (interviews, emails, notes-to-self). While most meander around the details of his personal life or glorify him as a tech prophet, this book homes in on some practical takeaways from his success and worldview. It demystifies him.
This is a fantastic book that I highly recommend to anyone wanting to dip their toes into the meaning of AI, consciousness, and the history of ideas on these topics.
This book seeks to answer one question: what makes nations rich? The answers are almost entire consistent with status quo economics from the 1950s:
Most non-fiction books focus on a very specific topic, and when you read them, a small corner of the patchwork than makes up your worldview evolves. It is probably a good thing that most books are specific in topic because most people are unqualified to make broad, sweeping, opinionated, and strongly held assertions about the world.
The premise of this book is that every information technology (e.g., Oral language, hand-writing, books, newspapers, smoke signals, radio, TV, blogs, Twitter, Instagram) creates a medium (e.g., television, literature, social media) and every medium is biased towards different types of content. Therefore, the proliferation of a technology and it’s medium(s) inevitably leads to the proliferation of the type of content that this technology favours. So, as television sets became more popular, television (the medium) proliferated, and so did the kind of content that television is biased towards.
No matter how you feel about Thiels politics, this is essential reading for any technologies or startup founder/investor.
This is a fantastic read about the Great Stagnation through the lens of a few specific scientific innovations.
While this book is very 101, it’s a great all-in-one resource to share with people who’re just getting started with public speaking and need support. And, this is all most people looking to improve their public speaking need anyway. Bonus points for having a free online version.
The story of Singapore is fascinating and important. It’s difficult to comprehend just how significantly society changed over such a short period. Found this via @robkhenderson on Twitter.
This book makes the sort-of arachistic left-wing case against bureaucracy. This book protests the lack of a serious movement on the left-side of politics to remove unnecessary rules. We seem to have accepted the current state of over regulation in much of the West, which actually holds back many progressive causes. If regulation slows things down, and progressives want change, they should be against too much, especially overly complex regulation. What is notable is that so much of the rules are not set by laws or regulations, but rather the bureacracies that implement and enforce them.
This is an interesting exploration into status and how it drives so much of the world we live in. This is the type of topic where, as soon as you start to think about it, it seems to explain literally everything about life. Pleasantly, it also includes some practical advice. Notably: while you cannot completely avoid status games, you can improve your relationship with them by diversifying the places where you get status. Define yourself in different ways to build a more robust self-esteem. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
This is a nice book for those who feel like they’d like to move towns, but aren’t sure where to go, how to pull it off, or whether it’s a good idea.
This is the best sci-fi book that has not yet been turned into a major film. Very good read, especially for those who haven’t read any Philip K. Dick yet.
Essential reading for software engineers. This extremely approachable book will set you up for a great career. This is one of my most gifted books.
Essential reading for anyone interested in startup investing or raising capital.