Books I Read in 2022

When one says Machiavelli, we think of The Prince. But Discourses is the longer and more dynamic book that articulates the principles of the state and republican government. It starts with a commentary of Titus Livy’s history of republican Rome, and then sets up how cities, states, governments get established and preserved. The short chapters (especially in book 1) around principles of administration and policy, “he who proposes to change an old-established form of government in a free city should retain at least the shadow of its ancient customs,” “those who setup a tyranny are no less blameworthy than are the founders of a republic or a kingdom praiseworthy,” “a weak prince who succeeds an outstanding prince can hold his own, but a weak prince who succeeds another weak prince cannot hold any kingdom”, make the book great for quick and partial re-reading. Some of the things he re-iterates about outstanding princes apply to modern CEOs too.

The book is also very quotable. In book 2, he says:

… for money cannot find good soldiers, but good soldiers will be sure to find money … Machiavelli, Discourses, Book II

… and I thought that one could say the same thing for software engineers. In book 1, he says: “… in every republic there are two different dispositions, that of the populace and that of the upper class and that all legislation favourable to liberty is brought about by the clash between them …”

This came recommended from a podcast I sometimes listen to. James Burnham was a philosopher and political theorist who started as a Trotskyist but eventually became a leader of the American conservative movement, becoming a regular contributor and editor of William F. Buckley’s National Review magazine. The book is a commentary on the works of Machiavelli and on Dante’s de Monarchia, and of four modern philosophers that Burnham calls “The Machiavellians.” They are Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels, and Vilfredo Pareto (the Pareto of the 80–20 rule). Mosca, Michels, and Pareto are co-founders of the Italian school of elitism. Burnham then summarizes their principles in a section titled Politics and the Truth. In that section, in the chapter on Democracy, he explores both the self-government meaning of democracy and that of liberty: the freedom to criticize and the existence of a public opposition to check the power of the governing elite.

This is one of the best books I read to understand the foreign policy choices of both the George HW Bush (41) and George W Bush (43) administrations. He was the US ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008. This book, along with Michael McFaul’s memoirs (US Ambassador to Russia 2012–2014) gave me a good first-hand understanding of the Russia of today. William J. Burns is now the CIA director, but he had a long career in the State Department. The key takeaway from the book is how the backchannel, or the informal relationships between leaders and diplomats are a big part of how foreign policy is conducted.

This is a re-read. But the third (or was it the fourth?) reading made me realize a few more things that I had missed in the earlier reading. Especially around religious tolerance, forging a nation out of warring tribes, communicating across large distance, and setting standards around diplomatic immunity. For example, to ensure error-free (and hard to intercept) communication of military orders, the Mongol army orders were composed in rhymes to ensure that messages were easily memorized and repeated to every soldier as exactly as they were originally spoken. The other realization I had is that the Mongols did not glorify death in battle, so most of their battle plans centered around ensuring the survival of the Mongol core.

This is the book version of Ayesha Jalal’s PhD dissertation. This is admirably researched and very well analyzed, starting with the demographics of different provinces of undivided India, the separate political journeys of Congress and Muslim League, and that of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. I have always been interested in blow-by-blow accounts of how India got divided on the basis of religion, but it has left me confused on the definition of nationhood and secularism in the South Asian context; as well as how a democracy should operate in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society. It is just unfortunate that the founders of India and Pakistan couldn’t agree on a single model.

George Friedman is a geopolitical strategist and founder of Stratfor and Geopolitical Futures. In this book he gives how political, social, and economic crises in the US come in cycles, and how the US responds. He predicts that the 2020s will be the confluence of multiple crises and how the US will overcome it. Friedman is very bullish on America.

I attended a “meet the author” organized by our county public library, where Emily Chang talked about the book. It is a fascinating and well-researched book about the bro culture in Silicon Valley and how the culture has made it hard for female entrepreneurs to raise money and start companies.

This was recommended by an ex-coworker. It is a good read, but I think it overestimates Chinese capability. China’s deserved economic and military rise is nothing but spectacular, but China still depends on the American Order.

Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical strategist who worked at Friedman’s Stratfor and then founded his own firm in 2012. Zeihan has been vocally predicting the end of globalization and the eventual disinterest of the US in running global trade and security. In this book, he explains how the shale revolution is going to make North America energy independent and trigger the foreign policy changes that will make the US increasingly disinterested in running the global order that it built to fight the cold war.

This book was recommended to me by a classmate, when we were discussing the economics of the European Union. According to him, Jane Jacobs’ book gave him the insights on how the monetary union is hurting the less developed economies within the union and preventing their ability to develop. Jane Jacobs is best known for her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and has been a vocal activist for a vibrant urban life and the preservation of neighborhoods. In this book she focused on how cities developed by import replacement and then using that to develop local infrastructure, suppliers, and skilled labor. Her overall point is that cities drive economic growth for regions and nations and the book described the mechanisms of that growth. In that context, Jane Jacobs explains that cities or initially under-developed countries that have their own currencies have the ability to make their exports cheaper and competitive in order to start the first phase of growth.

This book, a biography of Philip Yeo, written in an interview style seemed like a good practical manual to read on how to build a city-state from scratch and watch the principles of Jane Jacobs’ book in action. Philip Yeo served in Singapore Administrative Services and held various roles overseeing and executing Singapore’s economic development, science and technology research, trade, and defense.

This is the shortened version of the first volume of the memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew, the founder and the first prime minister of the modern city state of Singapore. It is a fascinating and inspirational read. He describes his experiences during the Japanese occupation, as a leader inside the federation of Malaysia, and the eventual separation and independence of Singapore. His conviction in opposing the forces of communism and of communal intimidation is very inspirational too.

This is Zeihan’s latest book, released in May 2022. He continues his earlier narrative of the end of globalization and the beginning of a multi-polar world. Using demographic charts and maps, he goes through the major countries that he thinks will have a good time (hint: Turkey and France) in the decades to come and the ones that will struggle (hint: Germany, China, and Russia). Like Friedman, he is very bullish on the US.

I got interested in Jean François Revel’s philosophy after reading his conversations with his son in The Monk and the Philosopher. Without Marx or Jesus signaled Revel’s transition from a socialist to a classical liberal and a proponent of free market. In this book, written during the height of the cold war (1971), he predicted the victory of the American system.

I must admit that it was one of the harder to read books that I read this year. Not because of the language or the concepts, but because the thesis that the US is charting a new course for itself in its cultural journey, and may (will) abandon its European enlightenment roots. It was thought provoking, and left me very provoked. I agree with Maçães that America is not in decline, but I had a hard time accepting that it is going to re-invent itself in a way that it will break from the past.