Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 91 – Public Intelligence Blog

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

4.0 out of 5 stars Serious Economics Poorly Presented, December 14, 2012

I have no doubt that among economists this book merits all the praise it has received; I do NOT recommend it for the general reader, indeed, I do not recommend it at all unless it is assigned reading, in which case my recommendation is moot. The book is neither as radical as its title pretends, nor as detailed as I was hoping for–how, exactly, do the one billion poor spend their 99 US cents a day? I bought the book because I am thinking about how to persuade Sir Richard Branson that he should sponsor “The Virgin Truth” [one pager concept has been posted online]; go “all in” on all the Opens including Open Base Transceiver Station, Open Spectrum, Open Software, etcetera [topic of my most recent book], and give each of the five billion poor free cell phone access and free education “one cell call at a time” as conceptualized by the Earth Intelligence Network. For me, this book is a four and not light reading. All text, few charts, no lists, no comparatives, no visualization.

The authors take one really brilliant idea and then talk around it, and that is why they lose one star. The brilliant idea is that we really do need to understand at a micro level how the just under one billion extreme poor spend their 99 cents a day (the other four billion less poor live on $2 to $20 a day), and how they make their choices, choices that often reject tiny investments in prevention (chloriating their water, for example) with the result that they end of losing work and spending more on remediation after the fact. YES! I agree. They then proceed to answer, at best, 20% of the question.

The big take-away for me–I was absolutely delighted to see this smessage repeated throughout the book–was how a tiny bit of information can make a world of difference, both in the choice that an individual poor person makes, and in the eradication of corruption once detailed numbers are published about what *should* have reached each schoolhouse in any given district. In other words, and this is NOT the key point of the book, but rather my key point: without changing a single institution, without redirecting a single dollar, the simple implementation of an information transparency regime changes everything. Now THAT is a book I hope these two authors will write soon, and that book will probably join my 10% “Beyond 5 Stars.” [I read in 98 categories, just one of them fiction, access all my reviews and their Amazon pages by category at Phi Beta Iota, here are just two: Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design (206); Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class (253).

Continue reading “Review: Poor Economics – A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty”

2012/12/102012/12/10

Review: Altar Stone – An Alan Llewellyn Novel

5 Star, Fiction

Walt Breede

5.0 out of 5 stars Revenge of the Nuns December 10, 2012

I absolutely recommend this book be read after the first one, Snow on the Golden Horn, see my disclosure and commentary there as well, and then move on, as I will when it comes out, to Sanity Check, not yet available for purchase. The author, a retired naval officer as am I, tells me three more are in various stages of production. I can certainly testify to two things: 01) everything in this book is based on the real world and 02) he writes a tremendous story line.

Catholics may resonate more with the good and evil nuns in this story, but if you have ever laughed as a nun joke, I am pretty sure you will be engaged.

2012/12/022012/12/03

Review: Snow on the Golden Horn

5 Star, Fiction

cover snow on the golden horn — Amazon Page

Walt Breede

5.0 out of 5 stars As good as Nero Wolfe, Travis McGee, or Matt Helm,December 2, 2012

DISCLOSURE: the author was my boss in the Marine Corps, and one of three truly brilliant bosses I have had in my 60-year lifetime. I read this book in galley, but now that he has two other books out and I have the set, this is a good time to do something I rarely do, review a book of fiction (I read in 98 non-fiction categories, you can access all my reviews by category at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog).

The author is a mathematics and operations research wizard (operations research is what the Navy used in WWII to anticipate submarine attacks and devise tactics that successfully drove the U-Boats from the sea). He is a US Naval Academy graduate who chose the Marine Corps, was the first Director of the Marine Corps Intelligence Center, and in retirement chose to teach high school mathematics and coach sports rather than cash in his clearances with beltway bandit work. I hold him in the very highest regard.

I should also mention that he was a defense attache in Turkey, back in the days when anesthesia for major medical for both men and women was a bottle of scotch, and I know from talking to him that quite a bit of each of his books is drawn from real-life experience with just a tad of embellishment (well maybe more than a tad). My point is that these three books are both engrossing, and connected to the real world.

I won't spoil the story line, and will just say that the protagonist represents the ideal man, the man every woman wants and every man envies, and as a former spy myself (the author was not, defense attaches are totally legal), I consider the protagonist to be the perfect citizen intelligence officer — action oriented, observant, brilliant, and prudent, and of course outrageously successful in the face of ably-described evil on every corner.

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED as holiday gifts and holiday reading!

The other two books are Altar Stone: An Alan Llewellyn Novel and Sanity Check, which will be listed on Amazon soon and will be the last of my reviews–and I will not repeat the above introductory material but will point back to this, the first book in what should be a six to ten book series.

Continue reading “Review: Snow on the Golden Horn”

2012/12/012012/12/01

Review (Guest): Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Corruption, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Gerard Prunier

5.0 out of 5 stars a comprehensive account of a vast conflict May 29, 2009

By Kirk Huff

This is going to be a complicated review.First, if you know nothing about the wars of central Africa over the past 15 years or so, in particular the Rwanda-related conflicts, this is an awful book to pick up and try to use as orientation. It assumes the reader already has a basic knowledge of the recent political events in about eight African nations and often launches directly into building cases against the conventionally-held wisdom, often without actually stating what the conventional wisdom is. I did my graduate thesis on the formation of an African Great Lakes rebel group, and I often had to stop reading to give my overworked brain time to process the flood of information or reread a section to make sure I understood Prunier's arguments. I can only imagine what readers who know nothing about the topic have to endure.

Second, one has to decide to what degree one trusts Prunier. If this book was written by someone besides Prunier, I would probably dismiss it largely or in whole. However, Prunier is the author of ‘The Rwanda Crisis,' considered a seminal early book on the genocide, and the author of ‘Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide,' also considered one of the best books of that conflict. In this recent book, Prunier recants entire storylines of ‘The Rwanda Crisis' and basically says, “Fourteen years ago, I discounted information that I now believe to be credible and this is the story as I now believe it to be.” So one has to decide if this is a sign that (1) Prunier has suffered some sort of mental breakdown or has perhaps been subverted by some political agenda or (2) Prunier has reexamined his sources and arguments in the light of new information, as a good historian should, to compile a more accurate portrayal. I seriously considered both as options, but decided that Alternative 2 was the most likely. You will see other reviewers who have decided otherwise.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe”

2012/12/012012/12/01

Review (Guest): The Dark Sahara: America’s War on Terror in Africa

4 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Complexity & Catastrophe, Culture, Research, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Insurgency & Revolution, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Terrorism & Jihad, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Jeremy Keenan

Phi Beta Iota: See Berto Jongman: Algeria Fronting for US in Fabricating Al Qaeda Threat and Legitimizing US Military Occupation of Sahara? for a short-hand version of the book. On balance and sight unseen we give the book four stars for provocation, while respecting the guest review below as being meritorious in its own right.

2.0 out of 5 stars Could be so much better, good premise, but unfortunately not based on too much fact, November 12, 2011

By Andrew Wasily

I like the premise of this book, that is basically why I bought it and read it. Unfortunately, Dr. Keenan has not based his book on much fact, but more conspiracy, and a belief that the United States is smart enough to enter into a grand conspirarcy with Algeria to dupe the region. I would have liked more of a cultural analysis about the threat of the United States military entering into the Sahara and Sahel.

The argument seems to me that the United States created the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and has focused much more military attention on Africa and African terrorist threats. The U.S., especially the military, can be very naive and see national interest in a fight against terrorists such as AQIM in the Sahel, Boko Haram in Nigeria, or al Shabaab in Somalia. If you look closer, these “terrorist” groups are very small, have little traction among the local population, and are hoping that the U.S., French, UK, give them some military attention so that they can become stronger (make this a war against the U.S.). A direct attack on these groups by the U.S., can only cause more conflict. There is very little the U.S. can do against these groups as terrorists. Africans and the international community likely needs to see these groups as criminal networks, insurgencies, and on the brink of losing legitimacy. It would seem to me that the U.S. and international community has to invest in police training, rule-of-law and court system reform, building new jails and training staff to properly treat inmates. The response to a supposed “terrorist” threat is what AFRICOM senior leaders know will be funded by Congress . . . you cannot justify programs by building capacity and working on rule-of-law.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): The Dark Sahara: America's War on Terror in Africa”

2012/11/27

Review (Guest): Routledge Handbook of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Insurgency & Revolution, Stabilization & Reconstruction, War & Face of Battle

The Routledge Handbook of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency
Edited By: Paul B. Rich and Isabelle Duyvesteyn
Routledge, 2012

Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 ‘counterinsurgency’ (COIN) has enjoyed a revival. The perceived failure of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to a ‘backlash’ principally by advocates of the use of conventional warfare against insurgents, some of whom see COIN as not a ‘manly’ approach to warfare, as well as by Anti-imperialists who see COIN as a means of extending Western imperial power.

Paul B. Rich and Isabelle Duyvesteyn’s handbook of insurgency and counterinsurgency gives us an opportunity to survey the state of the art in ‘orthodox’ counterinsurgency thinking. This ‘orthodox’ approach appears to dominate the ‘counterinsurgency industry’ and could be argued to represent an ‘interpretive’ or ‘epistemic’ community. Peter Haas defines an epistemic community as a ‘network of professionals with recognised expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain or issue-area’. This community tends to share common assumptions and intellectual beliefs and is influential because policy-makers may rely on their expertise.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Routledge Handbook of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency”

2012/11/192012/12/07

Review: Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century: A Middle Way between West and East

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Best Practices in Management, Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Democracy, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Information Society, Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Politics, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

cover intelligent governance — Amazon Page

NOW AVAILABLE AT AMAZON

Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels

5.0 out of 5 stars Influential, Integrative, with Integrity, Avoids Three Core Topics

December 6, 2012

Here's what is really great about this book:

01) The authors are connected, admired, and conversant with the great minds of Silicon Valley (Eric Schmidt offers a very strong blurb) and even more importantly, this book both represents the best from those minds, and has clearly had as positive effect in getting this particular meme (“intelligent governance”) considered.

02) The authors force attention to a fundamental flawed premise in the West, that any form of democracy (even if corrupted beyond recognition) is preferable to any form of dictatorship (the authors refer to China as a mandarinate). As someone who grew up in Singapore and has the deepest admiration for Minister-Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and the professionalism of the Government of Singapore (it employed my step-mother from New Zealand for many years, ultimately as head of the Department of English), I am among the first to suggest that the West falls short, but I would point to Singapore and the Nordics and BENELUX as my preferred alternative, not just hybrid, but rooted in ethical evidence-based decision-making. I would also note that the West has actively supported 40 of 42 dictators for the last fifty years — integrity is NOT a strong suit for our so-called Western democracies.

03) The book is strongest — no doubt as the publisher and the authors intended — in relation to the impact of social networks as feedback loops helpful to governments, whether democratic or mandarinate, that are capable of LISTENING. Chapter 4, “The New Challenges of Governmance,” is certainly suitable as a stand-alone assigned reading. The authors are heavily reliant on David Brin (I am a fan of his) but distressingly oblivious to Howard Rheingold, Tom Atlee, Jim Rough, Harrison Owen, and a host of others that have spent — primed by Stewart Brand — decades thinking about deliberation and consensus-building. Having said that by way of balance, this chapter strikes me as the heart of the book, and it gets high marks for pointing out that Google and all other options today are not facilitative of deliberative dialog.

Continue reading “Review: Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century: A Middle Way between West and East”