5 books to learn more about the world
Recently, I’ve been thinking about how the world has become the way it is today, and where it’s likely to go in the future.
I’ve done a lot of traveling this past year, and along the way I saw a wide range of countries and cities. Some countries have very noticeable wealth inequality, where you might see million dollar houses and megamalls one neighborhood over from slums. In others, the disparity isn’t nearly as extreme or visible, and the general quality of life for the average person seems to be quite high.
At the surface level it seems like a lot of these differences can be chalked up to themes like colonizers vs colonized, capitalism vs communism, and authoritarian vs democratic societies.
But I wanted to dive a bit deeper a bit deeper.
My hope is that by becoming more informed, I can find ways to contribute to reforming systems that are broken and holding people back from living more free and prosperous lives.
Here are 5 books I’m reading to better understand how our world became the way it is today:
From Third World to First: The Singapore Story - first hand account of how Singapore transformed from a former colony to a center of global finance and one of the most highly developed countries in the world in a single generation.
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty - a comprehensive theory that argues the key driver of differences between “successful” and “failed” nations are political and economic institutions that are inclusive vs extractive.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century - a historic review of how capitalism leads to inequality, how that becomes a problem, and what we can do about it
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - in contrast to Why Nations Fail, this book makes the argument that geography and environmental factors shaped societies such that some societies became conquerers, whereas others became the conquered
Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China - a biography of the life of Deng Xiaoping, one of the most influential political figures of the 20th century, whose policy shifts lifted China from poverty and set it on a trajectory to become a leader of the new world order