Three Books Explain China, Russia and the Next Economic Collapse
The guy on the left is a mystery, the one on the right not so much.
Photographer: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
I read a hundred or so books this year in my quest to better understand our complicated and turbulent world. Three stood out. Two were nonfiction, focused on the great challenges of our time: geoeconomic instability and the rise of China. The other was a novel that illuminates the most unpredictable threat we face: Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
The first is 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How it Shattered a Nation by New York Times business columnist and Squawk Box host Andrew Ross Sorkin. Much as in his previous book — Too Big To Fail, a gripping description of the global recession of 2008-2009 — it is a character-driven, front-row seat to an epic economic and geopolitical crisis, and a warning of what might be ahead.