Our Recommended Summer Reading List (Part I)

Memorial Day is here, and that means summer is upon us. I" 'm a big fan of recommended book lists - I collect them! - and, for the first time in my life, I took a stab compiling a list of ten books I've read this year that I really liked. Hopefully, you will find them as entertaining and enlightening as I did when lounging on the beach. I hope to have a second list of recommended books later this summer, too. 

The Chile Project: The Story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism by Sebastian Edwards (Princeton Press, 2024, 376 pages)

In 1955, the U.S. State Department launched the "Chile Project" - an effort to train and assist Chilean economists at the University of Chicago to help embed free market policies in the country. A steady flow of Chile's best and brightest matriculated through the University's graduate program, studying under some of the most brilliant economists in the World, including Milton Friedman. By the time General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the Neo-Marxist regime of President Salvador Allende in 1973, this cadre of free market economists was in a position to move sweeping reforms of privatization and deregulation. This is a fascinating history of what happened, the impact it had not only on Chile but the whole region, and how Chileans ultimately rebelled in 2019 against neoliberalism and elected Gabriel Boric president, a socialist dedicated to ending "neoliberalism." We would note, however, that Boric has struggled badly to implement his promised changes, including two failed efforts to rewrite the constitution.

US - Taiwan Relations: Will China’s Challenge Lead to Crisis? By Ryan Hass, Bonnie Glaser, and Richard Bush (Brookings Institution Press, 2023, 184 pages)

Over the last two years, markets have been concerned about a possible invasion of Taiwan, how the U.S. would respond, and what it would mean for the global economy. However, in our conversations with numerous market participants, many do not understand the dynamics of the US-Taiwan relationship, the history of China-Taiwan relations, and other important dynamics. Hass, Glaser, and Bush have published an excellent and much-needed examination of all these critical questions. To understand what is happening and what might happen, you must read this well-written and indispensable book.

We Win, They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy & the New Cold War by Matthew Koenig and Dan Negra (Republic Book Publishers, 2024, 220 pages)

Matthew Koenig's and Dan Negraea's book is getting wide circulation as something from a Republican foreign policy historical manifesto. The title comes from Ronald Reagan, who was asked in 1977 what the driving principle of his foreign policy was. His response: "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic. It is this: We win, and they lose." The authors, both admirers of Reagan and veterans of the Trump Administration, push back on the strain of isolationism currently running through the Republican Party. And it is having an effect as countless Republican operatives and strategists we've spoken to have recommended the book to me - and I'm glad they did, as it gave me an excellent inside view of where Republican foreign policy will likely go in the years to come.

Breaking the Mold: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity by Raghuram G. Rajan (and Rohit Samba ( Princeton University Press, 2024, 336 pages)

Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan and Penn State Professor Rohit Lamba write a fascinating and taunt guide to understanding what India has accomplished economically and what it still needs to do going forward. India's economy has overtaken the United Kingdom's to become the fifth-largest in the World. However, it is still only one-fifth the size of China, and India's economic growth needs to be faster to provide jobs for millions of its ambitious youth. Blocking India's current path is intense global competition in low-skilled manufacturing, increasing protectionism and automation, and the country's majoritarian streak in politics. Rajan and Lamba outline what needs to be done to overcome these challenges. 

The Dillon Era: Douglas Dillon in the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Administrations by Richard Aldous (McGill - Queens University Press, 2023, 296 pages)

Having grown up in Washington, I was taught by my grandfather (who was a mega-lobbyist who knew presidents and the most influential members of Congress while having a brother who was the FBI Deputy Director under J. Edgar Hoover) that history is more often quietly made by the extraordinary men and women serving the President than the President themselves. Douglas Dillon was one of those men - who is sadly fading away with the sands of history. The scion of a fabulously wealthy family that founded the then-Wall Street powerhouse investment bank Dillon Reed, he never forgot the real roots of his family - his grandfather had been a poor Polish Jew who emigrated to the U.S., settled in Texas, changed his name to "Dylion" which was his mother's name and from which it was anglicized to Dillon. This thin biography does a fantastic job recounting Douglas Dillon, who served as Treasury Secretary, savvy advisor to Presidents, Ambassador to France (back when that meant something and was not just an honorific), and Wall Street titan himself. 

Unexpected Revolutionaries: How Central Banks Made and Unmade Economic Orthodoxy by Manuela Moschella (Cornell University Press, 2024, 188 pages)

I stumbled upon this slim little book in a bookstore, and once I started reading it, I could not put it down. A fascinating read looking at how central banks - specifically the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan - have massively transformed from the staid and predictable institutions of the last century due to the shocks of the 2008 global financial crisis and COVID. 

In short, the playbooks central banks had worked from for decades had to be tossed, and new ways of dealing with economic shocks developed. The history the author covers is well-written and fascinating, but what was particularly engaging was how it has led to central banks stretching into areas far beyond monetary policy, such as climate change and inequality. The "neoliberal macroeconomic regime," as we have known it, is gone, and a new age of central banking is upon us in ways we are only just beginning to understand. 

Ian Fleming: The Complete Man by Nicholas Shakespeare (Harper Publishing, 2024, 864 pages)

Since he first wrote "Casino Royale" in 1953, Ian Fleming's James Bond has tightly gripped the imaginations of readers and moviegoers worldwide. It also helped Great Britain, struggling to get back on its feet after World War II, when the Empire began crumbling and colonial states broke away. Indeed, Fleming's Bond recovered a sense of Britain's strength, swagger, and pride so powerfully that James Bond has become enshrined as an actual emblem of "Great" Britain itself (Recall in 2012, then-Bond actor Daniel Craig - playing Bond one last time - joined forces with Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace to go forth together in a grand video production to officially open the 2012 Olympics in London). But who was Ian Fleming? In this superb biography, Nick Shakespeare shows that Fleming was almost as mysterious and adventuresome as his James Bond.  He sought to "live a complete life," which led him to travel the World constantly, have an incredible career in British Naval Intelligence, participates in some of the most significant, most important moments of his time, and know everyone of power and wealth in the World.  It was a fantastic life - one defined by his Bond novels, of which he only spent the final twelve years writing. 

The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States, and the Middle East 1989 - 2003 by Steve Coll (Penguin Press, 2024, 556 pages)

We are now entering, rightly, the phase where historians and policymakers can begin to look back and examine the Iraq War. Why did we go in? Why was the intelligence so off? And, as Steve Coll does brilliantly in this new book, why did Saddam Hussein risk (and ultimately lose) everything by giving the false impression he had hidden stocks of weapons of mass destruction? Coll goes deep, looking at not just the U.S. side but the Iraqi side, the Iraqi generals, scientists, and other people of power who sat by and played into this tragic facade that ended up destroying Hussein's long reign of power, plunging the country into war, and forever changing the future of Iraq.

The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, The Cold War, and the World on the Brink by William Inboden (Dutton Press, 2022, 608 pages)

Having served in the Reagan White House, I love to read good, well-researched books on what was actually going on while I was there (I started there when I was 22 years old and left when I was 25). Inboden writes an excellent history of how Reagan and his team successfully ended the Cold War and helped expand democracy and free trade globally. But it was Reagan's determination and focus on defeating the Soviet Union - the Evil Empire - that made it all happen. This is a great read. 

Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance by Michael Sobolik (Naval Institute Press, 2024, 218 pages)

Chinese President Xi Jinping's "project of the century" - the Belt & Road Initiative - is one of the most significant geopolitical gambits in recent memory, leveraging China's investments for political, economic, and military purposes around the World. Reaching around the World - from Asia to Africa to Latin America - China firmly set its grand strategy. So far, the U.S. and other Western and Asian democracies have not put up a comprehensive counter-strategy. Sobolik explains the Belt and Road efforts and offers an intelligent blueprint for the United States to counter it by playing off the one core weakness China has exposed to their plan: imperial overreach.