Our Recommended Summer Reading List (Part II) - Plus, Some Great TV Shows!

July 2, 2024

As we promised in Part 1 of our Recommended Summer Reading Lists last month, here is our follow-up list of more books we’ve been plowing through this summer. Plus, there are a few shows we’ve become addicted to that we wanted to suggest to you. We would love to hear what you are reading (or watching) this summer - send us your recommendations. And we hope you enjoy this list!

• At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China by Edward Wong (Viking Press 2024, 45 pages)

  Wong is a diplomatic correspondent and former Beijing Bureau Chief for the New York Times. He is also the son of Chinese immigrants who settled in Washington, D.C. His father had, before escaping to the US, served in the People’s Liberation Army but rarely spoke of life in China. Wong, when he became the Times Beijing Bureau Chief, decided to investigate his father’s mysterious past and, in so doing, learned and decided to write about what his family had endured and what the nation had experienced. It is a fascinating and highly insightful chronicle of the extraordinary changes China has undergone - and is still undergoing. 

• Moscow X by David McCloskey (W.W. Norton, 2023, 464 pages)

  If you are looking for a ripping good spy novel, Moscow X is the book to read. McCloskey is a former CIA analyst who wrote regularly for the President’s Daily Brief, delivered classified testimony to Congressional oversight committees, and briefed senior US government officials. He then went to McKinsey, focusing on national security, aerospace, and transportation clients on a range of strategic and operational issues. Armed with these rich experiences, McCloskey gives us a fantastic, fast-moving yarn of global espionage, the vicious internal politics of Putin’s Kremlin, the lives of Moscow’s super-wealthy, and the never-ending shadow war between the US and Russia. And if you like this one, try McCloskey’s earlier novel, Damascus Station (which I couldn’t put down, either). 

• No Trade is Free: Changing Course, Taking on China, and Helping America’s Workers by Robert Lighthizer ( Broadside Books, 2023, 364 pages)

  With the presidential elections fast approaching, understanding the thinking of Donald Trump’s foreign and trade policy is important. Lighthizer, previously Trump’s U.S. Trade Representative who oversaw the implementation of the tariff regime on China (which President Biden has essentially kept in place) as well as negotiation of the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement, presents a crisp overview of what drives not just Trump’s but the current Republican view of free trade - essentially, there is no free trade and the US gives away too much. Lighthizer is no rube to Washington politics and policy, having previously served as Deputy U.S Trade Representative in the Reagan Administration, as an important congressional staffer focused on trade, and as a highly successful lawyer at one of the US’ biggest law firms. This is an excellent tutorial for understanding what is proving to be, in many ways, a rough Washington consensus on the future of globalization. And keep in mind: If Trump wins, Lighthizer is being widely touted as his likely Treasury Secretary.

• Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace by Matthew C. Klein & Michael Pettit (Yale University Press, 2020, 288 pages)

  This one is not new, but it was highly recommended by a friend of mine, who I consider a genius on trade and geoeconomic issues. The author’s premise is trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, “but they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees.” The authors go deep to understand how trade decisions are made, researching policy decisions in China, Europe, and the US over the last 30 years. The book is well-researched, provocative, and - following on the above book by Robert Lighthizer - is highly complementary and necessary to understanding how global trade policy is being rethought and reformulated. 

• The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives by Ernest Scheyder (One Signal Publishers, 2024, 370 pages)

  Almost three years ago, the U.S. Congress approved the spending of almost $1 trillion via the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Infrastructure Bill - all highly dependent on accessing and using “critical minerals.” On a global scale, it is arguably the largest single driver of geopolitical tensions literally everywhere in the world. Everyone talks about critical minerals. But to be honest, I find most people really do not understand what is at stake and what it takes to get those minerals that are powering electric vehicles, solar panels, cell phones, and millions of other devices. Scheyder takes us, via this well-written and well-researched book, to school us on it all. This book is the perfect companion to the 2022 blockbuster “Chip Wars: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology.” 

• The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation by Victor David Hanson (Basic Books, 2024, 334 pages)

  Military historian Victor David Hanson looks at a series of sieges and sackings in history to show how societies can and have been obliterated and that war is indeed hell and can wipe out a city, a race, a nation, or a culture. 

• American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon by Steven Rinella (Random House, 2009, 304 pages)

  This is an old one but one of my very favorites. If you are a hunter of fisherman, you probably know who Steve Rinella is - a chef, an outspoken conservationist, and a hunter and fisherman. In 2005, he won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the Alaskan wilderness. Despite the odds—there’s only a 2 percent chance of drawing the permit, and fewer than 20 percent of those hunters are successful—Rinella managed to kill a buffalo on a snow-covered mountainside and then raft the meat back to civilization while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. While that is all fascinating, what makes this book a true masterpiece is his deeply researched extraordinary history of the buffalo in America going back 14,000 years. I was blown away by what I learned and I promise it will give a deeper love for our environment and for one of the most majestic animals still walking the face of North America.

Television Recommendations

• Clarkson’s Farm (Amazon Prime - 3 seasons and more coming)

  I am blessed to live on a small farm - Open Door Farm - outside Washington, D.C. My wife is the farmer, and she’s quite good at it, raising sheep, chickens (Swedish Isebars), Turkeys (Heritage), Guinea Fowl (which eat almost 300 ticks a day!), horses, German Shepards, and Burmese cats. Growing up, I was rarely exposed to animals in general, and I cannot remember even stepping foot on a farm. It has been the greatest experience, thanks to my wife, being around all these animals. But I am most amazed by how little friends, associates, and business colleagues have been exposed to farm life, too. We are all the sad victims of a tech-dominant world with too many apps. Recently, I was asked to speak before a major midwestern farming organization, and in prepping for the event, I asked the coordinator (an agro-economist) what he thought was the best way for folks to learn about farming. Without missing a beat, he said, “Watch Clarkson’s Farm!” He was so right. Starring Jeremy Clarkson (best known for his long-running show “Top Gear”), it is a wonderfully funny, real, and massively enlightening way to learn how farming actually works - from raising livestock to growing agriculture. It shows episode after episode, the massive challenges farmers face getting food onto our tables - something we all take too much for granted. 

• Manhunt (Apple TV+)

  We all periodically hear the complaint the US is going through the worst times in our history. Wrong. Watch this magnificently acted, historically accurate 7-part mini-series on the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators responsible for assassinating President Abraham Lincoln, the attempted simultaneous murder of Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William Seward, and Secretary of War Edward Stanton just five days after General Robert E. Lee surrendered in Appomattox. If you watch this show, you will be given a fantastic lesson on what was the most truly perilous time in our democracy. And you will learn a lot about a truly great but largely forgotten American hero, Secretary of War Stanton. Stanton, deeply devoted to Lincoln and his vision for reunifying the country, personally oversaw the manhunt - often racing about the countryside with a Union Calvary unit, interrogating suspects and collaborators, all while overseeing the implementation of Lincoln’s plans for integrating freed slaves into American society - plans which were vigorously opposed by Lincoln’s successor, President Andrew Johnson. 

  I love history but was amazed at how little I actually knew about the true extent of the assassination plan: The role of the Bank of Montreal, of wealthy businessmen in New York, of the Confederate Secret Service, and the direct knowledge and approval of the plans by Confederate President Jefferson Davis. And how all of them were attempting to reignite the Civil War. 

  But the biggest surprise for me? I won’t ruin it for you, but just say make sure you watch the very end of the last episode to see the extraordinary thing Stanton did to stay in power so he could ensure Lincoln’s vision was put in place. This is a superb series.

• Tokyo Vice (Max - 2 seasons - not clear if there will be another season)

  It is an edgy, gritty, and always thrilling dramatization of the real-life story of American Jake Adelstein, who went to Tokyo and became a crime-beat reporter at the prestigious Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper. The viewer is plunged into the complex, tradition-bound world of the Yakuza, Japan’s transnational organized crime syndicates, as Adelstein endures intense threats to himself, his friends, and even his family back in the US as he writes about the powerful, sprawling Japanese mobs. Maybe best of all is the acting of legendary actor Ken Watanabe. The real-life Adelstein wrote his memoirs “Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan” in 2009, which I hope to read later this summer. 

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.