False Economy by Alan Beattie Penguin, HK$168
The subtitle of this book, A Surprising Economic History of the World, makes readers expect the unexpected, but that's not what transpires. Alan Beattie, the Financial Times' world trade editor, delivers 10 easy-to-grasp chapters that demonstrate basic trade concepts and underscore how humans have shaped their own destinies. History, he writes, is determined by people rather than by fate, religion, geology, hydrology or culture. Oil and diamonds, for example, 'have often proved to be worth less than nothing for most of the inhabitants of countries in which they are mined', says Beattie, who also argues against the question, 'Why don't Islamic countries get rich?' Koranic prohibitions are not impediments to growth, he writes, and self-interest can induce theological malleability, which is why some Muslim societies succeed the way Christian or Jewish do. Beattie also analyses corruption, showing it doesn't necessarily impede development; trade routes and supply chains; and choices, which explains why a century after the Argentine and US economies were equal, America has achieved such success and its former rival has become 'a broken husk'.