The book explains and examines the many complex factors which define, underline, and often potentially undermine the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as it continues to weave the fine line of keeping its economy going along steadily whilst keeping its increasingly mobile, educated, spirited and critical populace happy, (or at least pre-occupied with other concerns), all the while having to deal with trade agreements and alliances, foreign partners and former foes, disputed regions and potential flashpoints both within and near the country.

Having opened up to the world with Nixon’s state visit in 1972 and furthermore in 1979 with Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms of “socialism with capitalist characteristics” which have transformed the sleeping giant into an economic dragon in a generation, the CCP can no longer rely on trotting out the old Communist lines that once placated the masses as its increasingly sophisticated and educated populace no longer believe it. What the CCP has found as a substitute in motivating and rallying the public behind a uniting cause is to use nationalism as a basis to underpin Chinese identity and enable the CCP to continue with its agenda. The trouble comes though when its time to rein in the masses once their spleen has been opened to vent against a common foe (usually either Japan*, Taiwan or the US) before it either jeopardises foreign relations and trade, leads to war or – what the CCP fear the most – brings down the central communist Government.

* – The 2005 anti-Japanese demonstrations are one such notable example where the powers that be initially supported and allowed the masses to protest, before deciding to clamp down on the protests a month later as they were starting to impact negatively on China’s trade relationship with Japan and China’s image abroad.

The book clearly details and explains the many push-pull factors and balancing efforts the CCP and its many and various wings have to manipulate in order to achieve internal unity and stability whilst at the same time not jeopardise its foreign relations and trade on which the economy relies on to grow, as the CCP well know once the economy dips and jobs become scarce, the conditions become ripe for civil unrest which is the worst case scenario for the CCP.

Shirk’s book also looks at the power structures and hierarchy of the various branches of the CCP and China’s all-powerful military, whom the CCP know they must appease lest there be any military revolt.

Chinese – Fragile Superpower does a thorough job of explaining and detailing the many domestic and foreign issues which the CCP must manage to keep the world’s most populous, and 3rd largest (both physically and economically) nation progressing without disintegrating as the world is more intertwined than ever and China and the US, as the book demonstrates, are intricately connected so that if one economy collapses the other will too, and with that a massive black eye or worse for the world as a whole.

Now that China has been opened and its economy set rolling it simply cannot turn back. The CCP know this all too well and now are more fragile and paranoid than ever to keep the lid on firmly so that they stay in control.

A fascinating book and must-read for anyone interested in China, US-Chinese relations, China’s relations with its neighbours, and China’s many problems and issues with its huge, dynamic and diverse population.

Today’s book is Outliers: The Story of Success by British-born, Canadian journalist and The New Yorker columnist Malcolm Gladwell.  This is Gladwell’s third book following on from his previous highly-acclaimed books The Tipping Point and Blink, released in 2000 and 2005 respectively. I first became aware of this book via an interview (part 1; part 2) Gladwell had with CNN presenter Fareed Zakaria and decided this book was a book I must read.

Outliers is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at successful and talented individuals and just how they got to where they are. On the surface, it may appear that they were born ‘with God-given talent’ or that they were born with ‘exceptional’ IQ. But, Gladwell contends that whilst these factors no doubt play a highly significant role in the shaping of these individuals’ destiny, a bigger factor is the often unseen factors that come into play and contribute to their success. The lucky breaks they receive, the fortunate events or time they are born into, not to mention the endless hours of hard work and religious devotion to their skill, talent or passion.

These factors may be the significant advantages of coming from a upper- or middle-class family where studies have proven children growing up in these families significantly receive more support, assistance, talent recognition and empowerment through their childhood than children of poor or working-class families. Another significant factor is happening to be born at the ‘right place and the right time’ and Gladwell clearly illustrates several examples where the individuals in question, one notable individual being Bill Gates himself, openly state that luck and significant fortunate occurrences played a key role in getting to where they are today.

Gladwell also examines and returns to throughout the book the ’10,000 hour’ rule whereby any individual can become significantly talented and skilled in a subject given the circumstances where they are given 10,000 hours to perform and perfect this task in their early lives. Here Gladwell uses the example of The Beatles, among others, whereby The Beatles by a series of fortunate, random encounters were asked to perform in Hamburg at a club 8 hours a night, seven days a week. Most bands would baulk at this work condition but The Beatles were so enthusiastic and passionate about their music that they relished the opportunity given to them, perfected their craft whilst spending those long hours in Hamburg and went on to become the most successful musical group in history.

Gladwell also points to the largely illogical cut-outs dates for junior sports teams and how frequently stars develop having been born within a few months of the junior cut-off dates, having the advantage of being older and usually more physically developed at a young age, and how these individuals go through the system and are picked for the regional and elite squads until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby 75% of professional sports stars were born within six months of their junior leagues cut-out dates.

The book also looks at how intelligence can only get you so far, and to get beyond that point you need early intelligence monitoring and subsequent streamlining, a support structure, vast network and nous to get ahead, citing two notable examples of two highly-intelligent men who have/had led incredibly different lives, almost entirely due to their upbringing and childhood.

Interestingly, the book looks at and examines the key roles in which culture shapes and molds individuals’ work ethic, thought processes, language acquisition and entire way of seeing and interacting with the world. Understandably, culture can be play a key – yet often overlooked – factor on how individuals and the societies they live in deal with issues, problems, conflicts and opportunities. In these chapters, Gladwell provides several notable examples – most significantly the key role culture played in the conduct of Korean Air pilots pre-2000.

In Outliers, Gladwell also takes a personal look at his mother’s family history in Jamaica and the chance opportunities, lucky breaks, fortunes of time and random occurrences which enabled her to move to London to further her studies and become a success.

Outliers is an entertaining, highly interesting and thought-provoking book. You may not be thoroughly convinced of Gladwell’s theories by the end of it but will no doubt be impressed by how well he presents his case. I give it five out of five stars.

This afternoon I finished reading Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island based on his seven-week journey cross the length and breadth of his adopted homeland of twenty years before he and his family were to move onto his homeland of the United States. (- He’s since moved back to the UK.)

The journey begins at Dover, where he first stepped foot on British soil back in 1973 and re-acquaints himself with his virgin British city. He discovers that the vast changes in Dover largely mirror the vast changes which – often for ever not for better – transformed the UK during his two decade spell.

The book continues with his journey zig-zagging east and west cross the country in a northward motion, re-counting interesting anecdotes and asides, reminiscing on past adventures and discoveries, and filling in on the details of each spot he encounters and the history and characters behind each location throughout his journey.

This book’s greatest asset is that it does pull any punches – it covers Britain and the British, warts and all – all the niceties, oddities, obscenities and eccentricities. All the blights, all the beauty, all the bustle, all the warmth, the coldness, and all that’s in between. Basically, Bryson does a brilliant job of providing us a taste of Britain – the true Britain which you can only true admire and appreciate from within. In this sense, he performs better than Down Under, which in hindsight looks like Bryson somewhat held back at parts in his critiques, possibly for fear of offending Australian readers – he shouldn’t have worried nor cared.

Notes from a Small Island is a fascinating and engaging read which does a great job of capturing British identity. Indeed, it was voted on a BBC Radio poll as the book which best represents England as part of World Book Day 2003.

As you can see by my current reading choices, Bill Bryson is one of my favourite authors and this book of his does not disappoint and is an ideal reading companion for anyone currently traveling or away from home themselves. Great little read, five out of five stars.

Bryson covers not only all the strains of sciences, all aspects of the physical universe – both in the macro and micro scale, evolutionary history, extinctions. But, all the many, weird and wonderful characters who have featured throughout history in bringing us to the – still, limited – understanding we have today of this world around us. The book does a great job of keeping the topic’s lively and interesting without unnecessarily dumbing it down. Bryson also brilliantly illustrates just how much of a colossal fluke it is that us humans are here where we are at this point in time. Humans were not pre-ordained to take perch at the top of the food chain, human evolution has been the result of thousands upon thousands of freak events, flukes of nature and downright miracles to continue to this point in history.

Finishing the book you are confronted with not only feelings of satisfaction for knowing just that bit more about the world and its many matter and forces around you. But, more importantly, are left with a strong feeling of wonder and appreciation for being part of this incredible miracle to be living and breathing on this wonderful sphere of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, and other elemental matter – Planet Earth.

Great read, interesting, informative and fascinating at the same time. Well worth a look at. Five out of five stars.

The main motivation for the book, Diamond recalls is a conversation with friend, Yali, a Papua New Guinean politician who in 1972 asked Diamond as to why it was Europeans with the ‘cargo’ and Papua New Guineans without. At the time, Diamond was largely unable to give a concise answer and so – two and a half decades on – this book set out in the aims of doing so.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is an incredibly ambitious book looking at the evolution and migratory patterns of modern humans, particularly from 13,000 years ago onwards – from around the time humans in the Fertile Cresent first began to move from hunter-gathering towards subsistence farming, and determining facts as to why some humans ‘developed’ more than others and as such managed to conquer foreign lands by means for their acquired guns, germs, and steel.

It’s a colossal task to take into account all the possible factors as to why some groups managed to progress to further stages of development, whereas others were largely unable to do. Though, through Diamond’s thorough research and sheer intellect, he successfully does so, and in doing so opens the floodgate to a whole new approach of the science of human evolution. And, whilst doing so closes the gate on the racist theories of the past as to why some groups prospered and spread whereas other did not.

In his book, Diamond explains how the guiding factors behind why peoples of the Eurasian continent were largely able to develop and progress at a more advanced rate than indigenous peoples of other continents were largely due to environmental and physical factors rather than any intrinsic racial difference between peoples of different continents in terms of intelligence and ingenuity. Environmental examples given as to why Eurasia was able to proceed at an accelerated rate compared with other continents include: being blessed with the most productive crops for food consumption; containing a large mass of land within the temperate climatic region, where the bulk of the world’s grains and livestock are located; having the good fortune of having the most malleable and reliable animals in which to domesticate; and having a predominately east-west continental axis allowing for comparatively easy transferring of domesticated crops throughout the continent due to similar daylight hours and seasonal patterns compared with the continents of the Americas and Africa which follow a predominately north-south axis.

So, as such, Eurasians were blessed with being born in the right location in order for them to develop subsistence farming which enabled them to give up hunter-gathering, enabling more time for child-rearing and food production, which produced greater populations and population density, which in time gave birth to a hierarchical system whereby chiefs, kings, armies, slaves and cities were created which would then move on in order to appropriate more land and resources, and the domino effect continued until reaching the New World, Sub-Saharan Africa, Australia and Oceania where the peoples of Eurasia’s superior weaponry, wealth, legal systems – and in particular, imported diseases, largely decimated indigenous peoples of the previously mentioned continents.

Diamond’s book was not without its critics however – which was inevitable given the sheer scope, worth of material, and potentially controversial topics and fields of study in the book. However, in his follow-up editions of the initial publication, Diamond has largely answered his critics – in my opinion, successfully – in terms of discussing reasons as to why it was Europe and not China, a long-running hotbed of civilization and inventions, that managed to colonise so much of the world and not vice versa. More recent editions also include a section on Japan, its current position in the global hegemony and just how it got to that position.

I haven’t nearly done justice to explaining the theories and principles behind Diamond’s book, and strongly recommend you to read this important book to further your knowledge of human migration and evolution, and in doing so realise that it was largely chance – being born in the right place at the right time – as to why Eurasian people got to their point of relative affluence today. The book is quite lengthy and in some sections a tad technical but should be readable for any adult or teenager, and as such would make a great resource book for high school or university students studying a variety of fields ranging from physiology to geology and evolutionary biology.

I strongly recommend Guns, Germs, and Steel and his follow-up book, Collapse, which focuses more closely on examples from the past provided in Guns, Germs, and Steel; and also looks at modern implications of the environment, climate and how strongly it determines our very existence. I give this book a top five out of five stars, and am looking forward to acquiring Diamond’s two previous books, The Third Chimpanzee and Why Sex is Fun?

To be honest, I was a little bit skeptical about reading a Seppo’s accounts on Australia, but quickly found myself at ease with Bryson’s thoughtful, engaging and witty writing style which draws you in and makes you what to read just that one more chapter before you finish for the session. Bryson is an accomplished writer, who clearly had done his homework, studying Australian history and cultural texts and having traveled down under several times before he put pen to paper and it shows as he possesses an admirable trait of being able to view the Australian psyche and eccentricities through an outsider’s eyes.

The book follows Bryson’s journeys across the width and breadth of Australia – barring poor ole Tassie, who doesn’t get a look-in – taking in the sights, viewing the natural wonders and engaging with the colorful locals as he travels. During the book, Bryson also explains some of the history, hostile wildlife and little known factoids on Australia and its inhabitants – many of which locals don’t even know – and laments the fact that Australia is so little known to the outside world, brilliantly illustrated in his opening chapter when on page 4 he mentions that  ‘Australia was slightly more important to us in 1997 than bananas, but not nearly as important as ice cream’ according to the New York Times Index.

Reading this book review you may be under the allusion that Bryson gallivants from five-star hotel to five-star resort whilst riding in first-class style, writing amorously of every location or spot he happens to visit – as travel writers are often found to do. But, nothing could be further from the truth. For the bulk of his trip, he is the solitary member of his continental  jaunt, traveling the long miles of often seemingly featureless, desolate highways linking interior Australia in a rented car. He also doesn’t give Australia and its cities an easy ride necessarily either.

Bryson was found to be largely not too fussed with Canberra and it’s miles of gardens and circular suburban roads, and was not too impressed either with the level of service he found in Darwin, which makes the book all the more enjoyable as it’s real and not needlessly saccharine.

It’s clear throughout the book that Bryson has a strong affection for the country and its people and whilst he does have his critical views and positions on certain topics and issues, in particular towards the position Aboriginal Australians hold in late 20th century Australian society, he overall has the view that Australia is a nation that should be better known, more respected and more often visited.

All in all, although slightly dated now – it was written over 10 years ago, not that that much changes in Australia anyway! – the book is a must-read for anyone hoping to travel to, learn more about, or who just happen to have a vague interest in the intriguing, often perplexing upside-down country-continent of Australia. I give the book four-and-a-half stars out of five. A top read in my book. I now intend to read some more of this bloke, Bryson’s books!

The book has a way of making you want to pack your bags, throw away your responsibilities and book a flight immediately for an Australian road-trip. Perhaps, I might just do that!

But, just as sure as Menzies had his critics, he surely had his followers in greater numbers. So much so that his book went on to become a bestseller, spawned a host of supportive websites (including his own where people can leave their own research and accounts of Chinese discoveries), and spawned several documentaries with talk of feature films being in the mix. Menzies, who possesses a passion for his topic which is uncontrollable and frankly, contagious, brushed aside all criticisms saying that a lot of these critics have based their lives and professional careers around the most accepted beliefs that Columbus and the Europeans were the first to reach the Americas and as such they have the most to lose and understandably are going out of their way to debunk his claims.

1421 described how during the peak of the Ming dynasty in its expansionary, outward-looking phase, great fleets of Chinese fleets led by the great general, Zheng He, would set forth from Nanjing onto Southeast Asia, India and Africa exchanging goods, knowledge and wealth in return for each provinces’ acceptance that the Middle Kingdom was their rightful superior. Many provinces indeed enjoyed the transfer of goods, materials and knowledge from the ‘benevolent father’ and warmly provided dowries for their superiors from the Middle Kingdom. Indeed, it’s irrefutable that there were established trade links between China, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East and possibly Africa with ports such Guangzhou, Malacca, Kerala, Mombasa possessing ample evidence of significant trade to and from East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Africa.

Menzies goes one step further in 1421 to assert that the Chinese didn’t just stop with the Indian Ocean on their quest for worldwide discovery and power, that they indeed traveled to any points of the globe including the Americas, Africa, Australia and even as far afield as Greenland. To back these claims, Menzies points to evidence, which truth be told is quite convincing in the Americas, particularly in certain pockets of the Americas to somewhat dubious when it comes to Greenland, Australia and farther afield. But, despite its downsides where Menzies almost seems to be trying too hard to find a link when there quite likely isn’t one, all in all I came out of the book a believer – believing that there was at least some Chinese settlement, discovery, transfer of knowledge and trade in the New World before the conventional history of  the Europeans being the first to ‘discover’ the New World. Polynesia in particular, is one region of the world where there was no doubt at least some Chinese interaction within the last 1000 years before Cook and co. came around due to DNA evidence, and flora and fauna species.

So, this leads onto to 1434 where Menzies goes one step further in his claims to say that it was indeed the Chinese – through their trade, interaction and transfer of knowledge – who provided the spark to ignite the renaissance and awaken Europe from its prolonged coma of nigh on a millenia. Menzies uses some quite compelling points to indicate that there must have been at least some transfer of knowledge, ideas and philosphies for there to have been this sudden renaissance, where in the space of less than 60 years Europe all of a sudden made significant gains in the fields of astronomy, cartography, geography, weaponry, navigation and shipbuilding. All of which fields the Chinese had superior and exisitng knowledge, and wherby the Europeans seemed to have had an uncanny knack of replicating these products, ideas and philosophies to such a degree that it points to more than coincidence.

But, if the Chinese interacted with the West, why isn’t there any existing Western literature of these grand fleets of learned Oriental gentleman setting forth on the ports of Europe and dispelling their infinite knowledge and wisdom? This is one point that Menzies can’t adequately address in my opinion and one that you can’t help but question yourself. I, for one, am sure that the Chinese – who before their self-imposed retreat from the mid-1400′s onwards were superior to most any civilisation in a host of fields by several centuries and definitely beleive that they did indeed managed to set foot on many lands previously claimed to have been ‘discovered’ by Europeans. I also firmly believe that the transfer of knowledge, goods and materials circulated from Asia to Europe via established Indian Ocean trade routes and the Silk Road. However, I am not as certain as Menzies as to the validity of Chinese vessals actually traveling to Europe as I’m sure had it been the case I’m sure there would have more than snippets of anedoctal evidence to back these claims. That said, I enjoyed 1434 a lot. Perhaps not quite as much as 1421 which really did manage to sink me into the prospect of China having set forth and discovering all these ‘new’ lands. But, nevertheless it’s a great read with some very valid points made along the way. No doubt there are some parts which seem more dubious than others but as I mentioned before, Menzies’ infectious enthusiasm makes you want to believe it all regardless. I gave it 4 and a half stars. I believe no matter what your views on history are, it’s an interesting and exciting read. Whether you believe it’s actual history or pseudo-history, it’s worth a read for you to decide.

The thing I really appreciate about writers such as Menzies and Jared Diamond is their knowledge of their subjects, enthusiasm, thirst for more knowledge and ability to write in layman’s terms about topics which many people may previously thought of as dry and boring into interesting, fascinating and compelling reads. If you have a love for history, geography and social sciences such as myself, I strong recommend you check out their books.

Who knows? Maybe I am Chinese after all!