Recommended: Top Ten Books 2018 That Cover A Large Historical Canvas

Thanks to Niall Ferguson for the Heads-Up!

Niall FergusonVerified account

@nfergus    

International man of history.

Author, broadcaster, Hoover Institute senior fellow. Latest book is The Square and the Tower (Penguin, October 2017)

The Square and the Tower was one of Seeking Alpha's Top Ten Books of 2018:

The Top 10 Books

Of 2018

Jan. 2, 2019 11:09 AM ET

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Niall Ferguson, "The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook" (January 16) compares the old top-down method of government (the Tower), including both church and state, with the volunteer networking of people (the Square). America was mostly built with what Edmund Burke called "little platoons," from private mutual insurance groups to volunteer firemen. Ferguson relies a bit too heavily on the Tower and the need for heavy regulation, but I think the Square will likely prevail.

 

Charles Mann, "The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World" (January 23) compares the "Wizard," biologist Norman Borlaug, who saved the lives of billions with his Green Revolution, to the "Prophet" of doom, William Vogt, the first modern Malthusian to predict that the world's resources would soon run out due to over-population.

 

Steven Pinker, "Enlightenment Now! The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress" (February 13) is a follow-up to his earlier book, "The Better Angels," about how human achievement is making life much better - lower crime rates, far lower death rates from war, lower deaths from disease or child mortality, and other risks, which formerly led to a much lower global life expectancy. He credits the scientific method for these advances and bemoans the many barriers some still erect against this progress.

 

Gregg Easterbrook, "It's Better than it Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear" (February 20) is similar to Pinker's book, but it's more political, opening with Donald Trump's inaugural address about the rise in crime, joblessness, poverty, and other ills - all of which are demonstrably not rising. Politicians and the media tend to tap into our fears to make money (or earn votes) instead of educating or inspiring us with accurate reporting on the positive trends that make life better. Fear makes big money for its abusers.

 

Ed Yardeni, "Predicting the Markets: A Professional Autobiography" (March 23) is the most important book on this list for our goal of analyzing this manic-depressive stock market. In his memoir, Yardeni begins with his entry into the business 40 years ago, followed by detailed examinations of various economic statistics. Keep this book nearby as a reference work for market statistics as they are released.

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Louis Navellier

Growth, registered investment advisor, portfolio strategy, large-cap

Navellier.com

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(1,782 followers)

Summary

Of the 105 books I read in 2018, these are the best 10.

I'm partial to books that cover a large historical canvas with a point of view that ties these great ideas together.

These books will remind us of history's most powerful mega-trend: 7 billion people are working every day to make their lives better, and that will always be a bullish force.

By Gary Alexander

One of the keys to becoming a successful investor is to realize that the strongest long-term trends will always transcend the ebb and flow of daily market gyrations and scary headlines. The media will forever focus on the worst-case scenario, but the one thing I would counsel investors to remember is that seven billion people are working every day to make their life better and that will always be a bullish force.

Last year offered a bumper crop of books that can remind us of that fact. For decades, I've read 100 good books a year, since I know that the Internet and Cable TV are trying to trivialize my mind with minutiae. Of the 105 books I read in 2018, these are the best 10. As I scan the Top 10 book lists of the New York Times and other venerable sources, I don't see these names listed. I see a lot of ephemera and opinion.

I was pessimistic for the first 25 years of my journalistic career (1965-89), but I wised up when the Berlin Wall fell. The world has made almost unbelievable progress since 1965. In fact, three of these 10 books (Pinker, Easterbrook, and especially Rosling) show that almost nobody believes this progress.

As you can see from these titles, I'm partial to books that cover a large historical canvas with a point of view that ties these great ideas together. I'll profile them briefly here, in publication order:

 

Hans Rosling, "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things are Better than You Think" (April 3) quantifies the level of ignorance among the general population as well as the most highly educated elite about the state of the earth's health, wealth, population, education, and other key issues. You may be shocked to see how much people have been programmed to believe the worst.

 

Jonah Goldberg, "The Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy" (April 24) is concerned that we are voluntarily dividing ourselves into warring camps, not listening to anyone else with different ideas. He is also concerned that we no longer believe the best about most of our fellow Americans. Jonah was a panelist with me in New Orleans this November, where we discussed several ideas emanating from this book.

 

Adam Tooze, "Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World" (August 7) is the best book about the 2008 crash I've read. Though exhaustive in its research (to the point of statistical overkill at times), its main takeaway, to me, was how overloaded with U.S. subprime mortgage debt the leading European banks were, causing Europe to go into a second recession in 2011, followed by a new crisis in the euro-zone almost every year. Ironically, America came out of its own crisis healthier than Europe.

 

Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt, "The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure" (September 4) identifies three great untruths prevalent on campuses for the iGen birth cohort (born 1996 and later, on campus since 2014): (1) "Fragility" or "That which doesn't kill me makes me weaker." (2) "Always trust your emotions" and (3) "The world is made up of good people vs. bad people." These untruths create most of our biggest conflicts these days