A wonderfully captivating and truly depressing book - it is clear why this is a literary great. John Steinbeck describes the journey of the Joad family from Oklahoma to California during the dust bowl of the great depression. Despair drips heavily off every page and Steinbeck captures the emotions skillfully. One technique was the naïve … More The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
A short book review from an investing classic. I enjoyed the turn of the century historical context, the booms and busts of the time and the different character of the investment management industry. For example, when Livermore was on holiday in Palm Beach Florida, he had to go into the physical trading houses to see … More Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre
It was great to read a history book and learn about the importance of electricity as a transformative technology through the ages. It is amazing that electricity was pretty much non-existent before the 1880s but it became widely used in the US by the 1930s, which just shows how quickly a revolutionary technology can spread … More The Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes
Centred on a scalping gang in the wider California region in 1850, Blood Meridian is a brutal portrayal of violence. The most striking component of the book is McCarthy’s choice of focus. The characters are peripheral. The reader gets a faint handle on a few of them, and only after reading half of the book. … More Book Review: Blood Meridian by Cormack McCarthy
More credit is not the panacea for debt! That is the message from Garet Garrett’s 1932 book, the Bubble that Broke the World. The overuse of debt was a critical cause of the Great Depression (I detailed the other causes here and here). America was a funder of WW1 before entering the war and extended … More The Bubble that Broke the World
The 1920s-1930s and 1960s-1970s are two periods with remarked monetary disorder, similar to today. After reading Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression, I read French economist Jacques Rueff’s “the monetary sin of the west” to gain a few insights on the 60’s. The world was meant to be on a gold standard during both the 20s and … More The Monetary Sin of the West
Sound Money 