CAPITALISM REBOOTED - REVIEW OF MACKEY AND SISODIA'S "CONSCIOUS CAPITALISM"

In 1970, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman wrote an essay in the New York Times entitled "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits". In this article Friedman criticized businessmen who make employees, communities and the environment their concern. He said, "Businessmen that take seriously their responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution...are preaching pure and unadulterated socialism."

THE EMERGING TRIAD - REVIEW OF RAGHAV BAHL'S "SUPERECONOMIES"

Raghav Bahl, founder of the media company Network18 which he headed until 2014, has written an interesting book entitled SuperEconomies: America, India, China & the Future of the World (2015). The twentieth century after the Second World War was a story of two Superpowers: USA and USSR. After the collapse of the USSR, the USA remained the sole Superpower throughout the 1990s. But with the dawn of the twenty-first century we have been ushered into the realm of SuperEconomies where America has to make room for the BRICS nations (especially China and India) not as "political or military challengers but as economic and diplomatic 'frenemies'". This is the book's central thesis.

THE FUTURE ACCORDING TO RICKARDS - REVIEW OF JAMES RICKARDS' "THE ROAD TO RUIN"

James Rickards is an emergent phenomenon in the field of economic futurism. A noted international finance expert, Rickards has written three books which form part of a planned quartet that lays out a bold and compelling vision about the economic vicissitudes facing the world.

In Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis (2011) Rickards warned of the ensuing currency wars in the world. A currency war is a situation where several countries simultaneously devalue their money with an ostensible motive of increasing their exports. According to Rickards this is the third currency war in the last hundred years - the first being in the 1930s and the second in the 1970s. Each time the currency wars ended badly so that the present day currency war is being called a "currency suicide".

REFUTATIONS: ARE FRANCIS COLLINS' IDEAS ON TENTERHOOKS? - REVIEW OF TANER EDIS' "SCIENCE AND NONBELIEF"

In my previous blog post, a few weeks ago, I reviewed acclaimed geneticist and present head of the NIH Francis Collins' The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2007). Serendipitously I chanced upon a book by theoretical physicist Taner Edis entitled Science and Nonbelief (2008) which provides a demurral to Collins' evidence. I share Edis' viewpoint here.

A SCIENTIST TURNS TO GOD - REVIEW OF FRANCIS COLLINS' "THE LANGUAGE OF GOD"

Francis Collins, the geneticist who is justly celebrated for having discovered the genetic mutations for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis and Huntington's disease and for heading the Human Genome Project, is also devoutly religious.

In his book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2007), he lays out his arguments for why any rational person would believe in God. His arguments are for the most part not Christian arguments; they are scientific arguments which any believer should be profoundly aware of.

A HISTORY OF MODERN BIOLOGY - REVIEW OF SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE'S "THE GENE"

Siddhartha Mukherjee, the author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Emperor of All Maladies (2011) (see my review here) is back with his latest book The Gene: An Intimate History (2016). Indian-born Mukherjee graduated from Ivy League institutions in the US and the UK and is now assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University.

METROPOLIS MATTERS - REVIEW OF EDWARD GLAESER'S "TRIUMPH OF THE CITY"

How do you go about picking a book to read? Would you pick up an unknown title written by an untested author? I find some awards are good indicators of the quality of the book. I try to read most of the Booker-awarded or the Booker-shortlisted fiction since they are almost always engaging. In nonfiction, I try to go by the FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book Award (now the FT/McKinsey Award) shortlist.

A book I chanced upon in my University library was Harvard economist Edward Glaeser's Triumph of the City: How Urban Spaces Make Us Human (2011) which was, the cover declared, shortlisted for the FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year 2011. I knew nothing about the book or the author other than this fact. But yet I found the book eminently readable.