Smart Cities.  Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia. Anthony Townsend. 2013.  Slate magazine says,  “Townsend has collected fascinating stories of urban renewal and innovation from around the globe and packaged them into lessons that are neat and digestible”. Our City is pursuing an Intelligent City initiative and I found much useful information that applies in this book.   I especially found his views of bottom up initiatives  useful as that is the model my City is using.  He references many organizations and website that have some valuable ideas and programs for any City to investigate. Very much worth the read and this is an author to follow.

The introduction is available at npr.org.

Prisoners of Geography. Ten maps that explain everything about the world. Tim Marshall.  2015.  I spotted this book on the shelf at Gatwick.  A quick perusal told me I should buy it.  The author does a terrific job in explaining the simplicity and complexity in understanding Russia, China, the US, Western Europe, Africa, The Middle East, Indian * Pakistan, Korea & Japan, Latin America, and the Arctic.  He starts with the geopolitics of each area, the gifts and lacks due to geography. Then you get a quick history of how meddling nations have drawn up political maps in contradiction to history  and geography.  Further explanation shows the present difficulties on helping/hindering these areas as well as their particular hot buttons . Every US president should read this book before saying anything about these areas.  Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

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Becoming Facebook. The 10 challenges that defined the company that’s disrupting the world. Michael Hoefflinger. 2017.  The author is a Zuckerberg fanboy – but as he lays it out in this book,  there are good reasons for it.  This book has reaffirmed to me why I retain my original Facebook shares.  The author clearly shows as an insider who understands how technology business grows why Facebook should stay on a tear.  Clearly written as well.

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Cover via Amazon

The Taste of Conquest. The rise and fall of the three great cities of spice. Michael Krondl. 2007 ISBN 9780345509826.  While travelling in Portugal I read this book. Fascinating,  as it delves in the roles of Venice, Lisbon and then Amsterdam and their successive monopolies in the spice trade .  Each city had a different approach in gaining their monopolies and how they “ruled” their Indian/Indonesian sources/possessions.  So much of the gold and ornate buildings in these cities was based on spice trading ( Pepper, salt, chili, cinnamon, then coffee and sugar) . The source countries and people did not fare well under the dominion of these successive traders.  The pursuit of spice is what drove the Portuguese to sail around Africa and into the Indies.  The author does a good job of illustrating  their particular drives and business approaches. Clearly written