Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh

 A few months ago, I came across an article on Dara Shikoh that presented a common viewpoint suggesting that if he had become the Mughal Emperor, things might have turned out differently. However, my perspective on this matter is a bit more nuanced. I don't believe that Dara, or any other Indian ruler for that matter, could have thwarted the European domination of India. It was an inevitable outcome, considering even the mighty Ottoman Empire experienced decline and downfall. Mughal India's overall reluctance, along with the rest of Asia, to invest in science, technology, and scientific education during the 17th and 18th centuries would have held it back regardless. It's worth noting that while Indians were constructing the Taj Mahal, American colonists were busy establishing Harvard College, which later became Harvard University. National priorities and investments in education play a significant role in determining how a nation will develop in the future. The Mughals didn't prioritize building a strong navy, and Dara's ascension wouldn't have changed that. The Marathas made attempts in that direction, but their defeat in the third battle of Panipat put an end to those aspirations. Furthermore, religious discord in India would have continued to persist.

Instead of Dara Shikoh, I find Aurangzeb to be the tragic figure in Indian history. My perspective is influenced by the research of Sir Jadunath Sarkar on Aurangzeb's life and rule. Towards the end of his reign, Aurangzeb expressed despair with the famous phrase "Az ma ast, fasaad baqi" (after me, chaos). This sentiment echoes the well-known phrase "après moi le déluge" of Louis XV. From a character standpoint, Aurangzeb possessed qualities that one would hope to see in our politicians. He lived a simple life, refusing to accept any salary from the treasury and earning his income through calligraphy and cap-making. He was devoutly religious and avoided the indulgences that his father and grandfather were known for. He valued merit over religion or family ties when appointing individuals to positions and had Hindus serving in his military and administration. He even prohibited the practice of Sati, the Hindu tradition of burning widows on their husbands' funeral pyres, which not even Akbar had addressed. (Eventually, the British successfully banned it permanently.) Aurangzeb also harbored a vision of expanding the Mughal Empire deeper into southern India. However, his successors were unable to maintain that legacy, and the empire began to unravel by the end of his reign. That, to me, is the true tragedy.

In contrast, Dara's focus primarily revolved around spending time with mystics. He got the Upanishads translated from Sanskrit to Persian. But, unlike his three younger brothers, he lacked the experience of leading armies into battle, or govern a province of the empire. This lack of experience was a significant drawback for a medieval prince and would hurt him in the war of succession. While Dara did possess a vision for a syncretic Indian culture, he failed to envision the necessary political structure required to sustain such a culture.

If we examine the historical pattern of India, we observe two distinct aspects that fluctuate over time. On one axis, we have the fragmented versus unifying nature of the body politic, or the central governing system. The unifying periods signify when the entire subcontinent is brought together under a strong central authority. Throughout the past 2,500 years, these unifying phases amount to approximately less than 500 years in total. This includes roughly 100 years under the Mauryas, 100 years under the Guptas, 100 years under the Mughals, 100 years under British rule, and 75 years under the modern Indian republic. Conversely, the remaining 80% of the past 2,500 years comprised fragmented kingdoms and smaller empires. During the time when Ghaznavi was plundering temples in Gujarat, Rajendra Chola was raiding temples in Bengal. I won't delve into the debate on whether an imperial India or a state of warring factions is preferable; rather, I am simply stating the observations I have made.

The second aspect revolves around the dominant culture and its characteristics: whether it is rigid or flexible, imposed from the top down or developed organically. One might assume that a top-down, rigid imposition of a mono-culture on India, similar to how Chinese Han rule unified China millennia ago, would bring about unification. Aurangzeb held a rigid cultural vision, believing (understandably) that such rigidity was necessary to maintain and expand the empire. His vision of India did not accommodate a Shia-ruled Golconda. On the other hand, Dara's vision was flexible and inclusive, but his methods were unlikely to contribute to a politically and administratively stronger country. Even Ashoka the Great had to impose Buddhism as a state religion. Conversely, Sufism and Bhakti are examples of organic, grassroots movements driving cultural and social change. However, their capacity to politically unify hundreds of millions of people remains unproven.

The debate between Dara and Aurangzeb is not particularly pertinent, in the long arc of history. What truly matters is the trajectory of India's history, specifically whether it tends towards unity or fragmentation. Crucially, the basis of the unification is important. Should the unification be grounded in values of flexibility and tolerance, or should it be on the basis of a mono-culture. Aurangzeb's tragic legacy in the 18th century serves as a valuable lesson, highlighting the necessity of striking a balance between unification, tolerance, flexibility, and making appropriate investments in military strength and education. Ultimately, these factors play a vital role in shaping India's future.

Maximum engagement vs Maximum abstraction: how to scale without losing touch with reality

One of the biggest things I had to learn over the last five years was to scale myself without losing touch with the details of the business and the operations. Mental models have been a great tool in that. For me, they are like maps, or mathematical equations; they help me understand reality without having to spend the time to understand everything that happens in the real world. My biggest struggle was to use the right mental model for the right decision making and keeping the mental model updated as reality changed. The real world is very dynamic.

Last year, I stumbled upon an episode of the Endless loop podcast where the guest speaker was Tom Morgan, a knowledge curator in the financial services industry. He talked about a mental model of maximum engagement and maximum abstraction. I have been thinking more about it, and I wanted to expand a bit more on it. 

Here's how he describes it in the podcast. "At maximum engagement, you're one with everything in this undifferentiated mass. And at maximum abstraction, you're completely isolated from the world with enormous power over it, but completely disconnected from it. And I think that a lot of people get into real trouble in life when they become maximally abstracted. So if you're living completely in the map and not in the territory, that's actually one of the descriptions of major depression. It's basically when your map doesn't get updated by new territory. And your network is completely closed to new information and there's no connectivity whatsoever. So, basically people in the executive suite, when no one wants to bring bad news to them, they're almost like completely disconnected."

When you're running things as a leader, the larger the organization, the harder it is to have a maximum engagement experience all the time. So, the ideal situation is to keep walking between two ends of that continuum between maximum engagement and maximum abstraction. Napoleon used to lead his army into battle, when most monarchs and prime ministers at the time stayed in their palaces and cabinet rooms. Duke of Wellington led his army into battle in India and Europe before becoming Prime Minister. Sir Winston Churchill resigned from the cabinet after the Gallipolli disaster and went to command an infantry battalion in France during the first world war. In the software world, Bill Gates coded - until he couldn't. However, the maximum abstraction behavior gave us the tragedies of Iraq and Afghanistan. It also gave us the 2008 financial crisis. The people running our largest banks had no idea what was really backing up the mortgage backed securities. The maximum abstraction behavior definitely helps leaders scale as long as the abstraction - or the model - is getting updated with reality. And the way leaders can update their abstraction is by having that maximum engagement experience to make sure that their abstractions match reality.

What should leaders do to be able to live on maximum engagement, sometimes? Some of the executives at AWS actually roll-up their sleeves and code against the APIs their teams are producing. Leaders go out and talk to customers and participate in customer call-listening sessions. Leaders of smaller or medium sized engineering teams participate in and contribute to code and design reviews. Many product leaders use their own products like a customer would: eating your own dogfood. The trick is not about staying in maximum engagement all the time, but it is about staying at the right level of engagement and using the lessons learned during that engagement to update the abstraction of reality. This also involves creating the right organization culture where anyone in the organization can bring bad news, and bring in suggestions to improve what's broken.

Books I read in 2021

 

Here is my 2021 book list.

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. This was suggested to me by a coworker in a discussion about artificial general intelligence. I found some of the ideas a bit far fetched, but fascinating. I also think that Life 2.0 isn't done yet: we (humans) have not finished our evolution as a culture yet, so artificial intelligence is more like version 2.5. 

The walled garden of Truth: Sana'i. This was another suggestion (in the form of a question) from a coworker. Sana'i was a Persian Sufi poet, who lived in Ghazni (Afghanistan) in the late 11th/early 12th century. 

The Dawn of Eurasia: On the trail of the New World Order, by Bruno Maçães. This is an interesting travelogue cum history lesson plus attempted prophesies by the former Portuguese minister for European affairs. I liked the stories and the insights (for example an insight into the difference between the Chinese and the Indian way of doing business), but I'm not sure if I agree with extrapolating the Chinese economic growth linearly into the future. 

Nishabd Noopur, by Balram Shukla. This is a collection of Rumi's ghazals, both in the original Persian and the author's Hindi translation. Balram Shukla is a professor of Sanskrit and Persian at the University of Delhi. Of course, he teaches Sanskrit in Persian! I loved the translations, and it helped me understand many of the Ghazals really well. 

The Goal: A business graphic novel, by Eliyahu Goldratt. I read it as quick reading before a book club at work. This is probably the most read book at Amazon book clubs. The graphic novel just made the reading faster.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid, by Douglas Hofstader. This is one of the most abstract books I have read in a long time, and I must say that it is very hard to quickly read it. I am now looking for books to help me understand GEB!

The splendid and the vile: A saga of Churchill, family, and defiance during the Blitz, by Erik Larson. This book was also suggested to me by a coworker, and served as a new perspective of the British mindset during the second world war.

India as seen by Amir Khusrau (1318 AD), by Prof. R. Nath. I came across this book while trying to suggest a good book to understand Amir Khusrau. 

Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, by Joseph Schumpeter. This was part of my reading to understand the basic model of how the economy works, and how the political forces shape the economy. This is also the book that first introduced creative destruction to describe innovation. 

Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment, by Yanis Varoufakis. This is part of my continued attempt at understanding the great recession and its aftermath: economic and political. Yanis Varoufakis was the Greek Finance Minister for a few months in 2015 as part of the Syriza government and wrote a first hand account of how the European Union functioned. He had the un-enviable task of negotiating with creditors, when debt restructuring and abandoning austerity should have been the right thing to do. I highly recommend this book, but do read Mark Blyth's Austerity: the history of a dangerous idea after this.

The Accidental superpower, by Peter Zeihan. "The next generation of American preeminence and the coming global disorder", according the author, is inevitable. This is the first book of Peter Zeihan's series that is describing a new world-order that (according to him) will start in the 2020s. This is when the US will become disinterested in policing the world, will be self-sufficient in energy and food, and the US rivals (China and Russia) will experience a demographic collapse. "It takes twenty years to raise twenty year olds", according to Zeihan. I would recommended it to the people who are predicting that China is about to take over.

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. This book covers Jennifer Doudna's career and the development of CRISPR, the gene editing tool. I bought this for my daughter to get her inspired, and I got inspired too! 

Here's a list of books that I started reading, but haven't finished yet:

Railroader: The Unfiltered Genius and Controversy of Four-Time CEO Hunter Harrison, by Howard Green

Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A corporate fool's guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie, 

Multipliers: How the best leaders make everyone smarter, by Liz Wiseman.

It's your ship: Management Techniques from the best damn ship in the Navy, by Captain Michael Abrashoff. 

And here are the books that I read for the second time in 2021.

Writing systems of the World. This was actually one of my first purchases from Amazon, and I seem to have misplaced that book in my last move. I love it as kind of a reference book on writing systems.

Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world, by Jack Rutherford. 

Baburnama. My ritual yearly reading.

How Great Generals win, by Bevin Alexander. I read this over the winter break to prepare for another book club at work. I blogged my book notes earlier.

Summarizing, my reading over the last few years has a few themes.

Understanding leadership and strategy. This is where I venture far into documented and verified history as much as I can and take inspiration from leaders from the past. Leaders who also led armies (or navies) tend to inspire me the most, because they not only had to talk, but they also got to organize and act.

Understanding who we are, where we came from, why we are here, and where are we going. This is not only the material aspects of who we are (language, history, genetics), but also the spiritual aspects. My interest in Sufism has come from this urge to understand. Reading the translations of the Upanishads (no, I have not mastered Sanskrit well enough to understand the original) helps me analyze the nature of being, consciousness, and reality.

Understanding how the economy works. This has been another theme, not just to figure out where and how to invest, but also to be clear on the cause and effect in economics. I thought that Ray Dalio's explanation was fascinating, but I felt missed the political piece of the cause and effect machine. Mark Blyth's books and lectures have helped me understand as well. 

Understanding the cycles of history, and trying to predict the future by exploring the role of technology in shaping the future. My interest in understanding history in terms world orders comes from this. Bruno Maçães, Peter Zeihan, Kishore Mahbubani, Henry Kissinger, Yuval Noah Hariri are some of my recent friends and teachers in that journey.

My previous book lists:

2020   2019     2018     2017     2016    2015    2014    2008    2007

Book notes: How Great Generals Win

 "Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeperat bellum", said the Roman general Vegetius: "If you desire peace, prepare for war". What fascinates me about military history are two related things: strategy and leadership. How great commanders and generals plan their steps to attain their objective, and how they inspire and lead people towards that objective. Wars are bad, and in almost all cases represent the worst of humanity, but in many cases it also represents some of the best ideals of humanity too: loyalty, courage, sacrifice, and the willingness to fight to uphold what we believe is right and just. A war can also change the flow of human history, as I wrote in the seven battles that changed the world.

Bevin Alexander's How Great Generals Win is a short account of the leaders and strategists and discusses some common patterns of successful generals in the way they pursue their strategy:

1. Great generals do not repeat what has failed before. They do not send troops directly into a battle for which the enemy is prepared and waiting. On the contrary, they strike where they are least expected against opposition that is weak and disorganized. "The way to avoid what is strong is to strike what is weak" said Sun Tzu in the Art of War.

2. Great generals do things that break their enemy's will and resolve to fight, like Sherman did by marching through Georgia and the Carolinas, and like the Mongols did by making the enemy believe that their army was three times larger than it actually was. This also means training, development, and morale of one's own troops is equally important.

3.  Great generals pursue a "plan with branches". This is the strategy of spreading out the attacking force into multiple advancing columns that can reunite quickly when necessary. When correctly executed, this ends up scattering the opposition because they have to defend on all fronts, whereas the attacking forces have the options for surprise action, including attacking the rear (manæuvre sur les derrières: the rear maneuver, used by Napoleon many times). 

4. Technology changes the equation, but not for long: stirrups, the compound bow, gunpowder, canons, tanks, and (now) nuclear weapons gives superiority to the party possessing it, only until everyone else builds or steals the technology. But even the temporary technical advantage (Agincourt, in 1415, with the English longbow for example, or ending the first world war with the technical superiority of tanks, or the Manhattan project) is worth pursuing.

5. Great generals concentrate forces where they matter. "The nature of strategy consists of always having, even with a weaker army, more forces at the point of attack or at the point where one is being attacked than the enemy" (Hans Delbrück). This is not in contradiction to the "plan in branches", but it gives the general the prioritization they need on when and where to spread out and surprise.

Business strategy is different from war, and there is considerable temptation to equate a competitor with an enemy. But, the dynamics is different. In business, a fully informed customer is a willing participant, and what matters is a strategy of delivering value and convenience better than anyone else. 

I think the book should have included great admirals and naval battles too. Lord Nelson's unconventional thinking and planning at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) was key to the victory there. Instead of the conventional engagement of the French fleet in a single parallel line of battle, he instead divided his fleet into two columns and approached perpendicularly, breaking up the French fleet into three and surrounding it. Nelson also had the advantage of a better trained and a more experienced naval crew.

Where have I come from? Why? Where am I going?

My feeble attempt (with considerable help from Dr. Balram Shukla's Hindi translation) at translating this wonderful Ghazal by Rumi. The video below shows Farrokh S. Namazi, of College of William and Mary, singing it beautifully.

Roz-ha fikr-e-man ein-ast o ham-e-shab sukhanam 
Ki chera ghafil az ahwaal-e-dil-e-khwoishtanam

(Every day I wonder and I spend the nights saying: 
Why do I forget about the state of my own heart?)

Az koja aamde-am? aamdanam behr-e-che bod? 

Ba-koja miravam? aakhir na numai watanam?

(Where have I come from, and why have I come?

Where am I going to? Why can't I see my own land?)

Mande-am sakht ajab kaz che sabab sakh mara 

Ya che bodah-ast muraad-e-o-azeen saakhtanam

(For me, it is a wonder that there is a reason for my being.

But what is the creator's will behind creating me?)

Morgh-e-bagh-e-malkootam ni-am az aalam-e-khak 

Chand rozi qafasi saakht-e-and az badanam 

(I am a bird in this creator's garden, and I have nothing to do with this world of dirt,

 Just for a few days, this body is my prison.)

Ki-eest aan gush ki aw mishinvad awaazam

Ya kodam-ast sukhan mi-kunad andar dahanam

(Who is it that is hearing my voice?

Or who is it speaking through me?)

Ki-eest dar deedeh ka az deedeh biroon minigarad

ya che jaan-ast na gooyi ki manash pairahanam

(Who is in my sight that is seeing through me?

 Or who is that soul for whom I am the dress?)

Ta ba-tahqeeq mara manzil o rah-na-numai

eik-dam aaraam nageeram nafasi dam na-zanam

(In this search, until the destination and the path is shown,

 I won't take a bit of restful breath!)

mai-e-wasalam bichishaan ta dar-e-zindaan-e-abd

bi-yaki a'rabd-e-mastaaneh be-ham dar shikanam

(Let me drink the wine of union so that, in this prison

 In one mad blow, I can break down the door.)

man bikhod na-amadam inja ki bikhod baaz ravam

aan ki aavord mara baaz burd ta watanam.

(I haven't come here by myself, so I won't leave by myself

The One who has brought me here will take me to my land.)

One can't help but notice the similarities between this and the first chapter of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, that starts with (the first verse):

    Kim karanam Brahma kutah sma jata

        jeevam ken ka cha sampra

    Adhitsthitah ken sukhetareshu

        vartamahe brahmavido vyavastham.

What is the cause? (Is it) Brahman? Why are we born? Why do we live? Where is our final rest? Under whose orders are we, who know the Brahman, subjected to the law of happiness and misery?

Books I read in 2020

This is my 2020 book list. Working from home saved me an additional hour of commute; and that gave me more time to read. 

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike, by Phil Knight. This was suggested to me by a coworker and I enjoyed reading it. I loved how he mixed his personal and his business accounts, as well his sense of mission.

The City and Man, by Leo Strauss. It took me a while to finish reading the three essays, and I wish I was introduced to Leo Strauss's writings earlier in my life, when I was struggling with understanding classical Greek philosophy in my twenties. I have read the subject material of the three essays (Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics, Thucydides' Peloponnesian Wars) before, but I have struggled to relate them to today's world. Except perhaps the very early realization that I was not a big fan of the society and the system described by Plato in the Republic. I have also not accepted the simplistic version of Thucydides' Trap that is used in describing US-China relations as declining power-rising power dynamics. 

The Lessons of History, by Will and Ariel Durant. Unlike the previous book (The City and Man), that took me multiple months of interrupted reading, I was able to finish this over one weekend night. It is a summary of their eleven volume The Story of Civilization. I really loved how the chapters were divided into: earth, biology, race, character, morals, religion, economics, socialism, government, and war. And then ending with growth and decay and the final "is progress real"? I really liked the speed and brevity of this book. 

The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph, by Albert Hirschman was on my reading list for a while. And like Leo Strauss, I wish I had read Hirschman's writings earlier. The writing argues out what is mentioned in its subtitle: political arguments for Capitalism before its triumph, by building up the intellectual and philosophical foundations from Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Sir James Steuart, John Millar, Adam Smith, Tocqueville, and Schumpeter. I did have to pause a number of times and understand the subject matter of the background material.  

The Monk and the Philosopher: A father and son discuss the meaning of life, by Jean-Francois Revel is a collection of conversations that the French philosopher (Revel) had with his son Matthieu Ricard, the molecular biologist turned Buddhist monk. It is a fascinating dialog, that combines Jean-Francois' western enlightened skepticism with his son's explanation of monastic Buddhism to a mainly western audience. The book covers various aspects of the meaning of life, personal accounts of the ability of some monks to read minds and to understand rebirth; the current state of Tibetan Buddhism; as well as the history of spiritual thought in the East. 

How to be an anti-racist, by Ibram X. Kendi, as part of my self-education on the complex and untaught history of racism in the US, and to learn how one can make a difference and change.

Rubaiyat of Khayyam, in Farsi, with English translations. I felt that I was finally ready to read the Farsi original. At first, I compared the literal text with Edward Fitzgerald's interpretive translation and got a bit worried about how different they were. 

For example:

    roz ast khosh, o hawa na garm ast na sard (The day is great, and the wind is neither hot nor cold)

    abr az rokh-e golzar hami shoeed gard (the rain clouds wash the dusted face of rose trees)

    bulbul ba-zaban-e-pehlvi ba gul-e-zard (the nightingale, to the yellow rose, in the pehlvi language)

    faryad hamee-zand ki: mai baaeed khord! (sings the complaint: wine for me!)

was translated to:

    And David's lips are lock't but in divine

    High piping Pehlevi, with "Wine! Wine! Red Wine!"

    the Nightingale cries to the Rose

    That yellow cheek of her's to incarnadine.

Then, when I started wondering what it really meant, and why the bird is singing in Pehlevi (old Persian) to the yellow rose; I realized that not only is the text untranslatable, any deep interpretation has to be in poetry as well. And that's when I realized what an admirable job Edward Fitzgerald did with his translation.

Everything in this: the day, the not-hot not-cold wind, the dusted faces of the rose trees, the rain clouds cleaning them, the nightingale singing in high Pehlvi, the yellow rose, and of course the wine, has a different meaning from the literal one; and it is close to impossible to tie them together in prose.

Swami Yogananda's book, Wine of the Mystic, also helped me understand the deeper context of many of the quartrains (ruba'i). But frankly, I feel it will take me at least one lifetime of reading and understanding to get any close to the real meaning of the poetry.

Masnawi: in Farsi, with English translations, Rumi (Molavi).  Reading this slowly, in the original, and slowly understanding the meaning has become a fun weekend activity for me. Here's a really interesting one (from Qissa deedan khaleefa laila-ra: the story of the Caliph's seeing Laila):

     har ki beedar ast aw dar khwab tar, hast beedaarish az khwabash batar

    chon ba haq beedar nabood jaan-e-ma, hast beedari cho dar bandan ma    

"Whoever is awake (to the material world) is more asleep to the spiritual world, his wakefulness is worse than sleep. When our soul is not awake (to God), wakefulness is like closing our doors (to Divine influences)"

If you ask someone who has read the Bhagavad Gita what this reminds them of, they will probably point to Bhagavad Gita 2.69:

    ya nisha sarvabhutanam, tasyam jagarti samyami

    yasyam jagrati bhutani, sa nisha pashyato muneh

"What is night for all beings is the time of waking for the disciplined soul; and what is the time of waking for all beings is night for the sage who sees (or the sage of vision)"

(Translation from Dr. S. Radhakrishnan's version). 

The question is, whether these are independent thoughts, or one influenced the other? Molavi's poetry is full of verses that make one wonder. Like the Rubaiyat, I think it will take me more than one entire lifetime to understand the real meaning of Molavi's poetry.

Principles: Life and Work, by Ray Dalio. This started coming up in my Facebook promoted feed and I bought the book after watching the summary video. A lot of the principles match mine, and is a good framework for building a meritocratic and accountable work culture. 

Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence can make healthcare human again, by Eric Topol. The book starts with the issues of how medicine in practiced today, including the authors own, personal, and painful experiences. He covers the advances of artificial intelligence and gives a good overview of how that can be (will be, is being) applied to generate better diagnosis, detecting mental health issues, drug discovery, neuroscience research, diet management, and becoming a virtual medical assistant. I would highly recommend it to someone who is remotely interested in the future of medicine and health care. 

World Order, by Henry Kissinger. I came across this book while I was trying to finish one of my blog posts. It gave me a good mental framework to think about contemporary geopolitics in the context of a multi-century narrative. The part that impressed me a lot was the how he started the South Asian chapter with a brief overview of Kautilya's Arthashastra, and the Bhagavad Gita.  

Poems of Love and War, from the Tamil Sangam literature written between 100 BCE and 250 CE. It was mainly my curiosity that got me to understand the elements of Tamil classical culture. I felt that the English translation did a good job (I don't speak the language) but may have simplified the overall meaning. 

The Three Body problem, Cixin Liu. This had been recommended by too many smart people to ignore, and I succeeded finishing it in my second attempt. The initial account of the horrors of the cultural revolution turned me off, but the book ended in an interesting way. I am reading the sequel now.

Who we are and how we got here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Ancient Past, by David Reich. A recommendation from a coworker when we were discussing genetics in one of our team happy hours. This is fascinating research, especially the science and the mathematics behind it. His Harvard lab page, especially the list of software tools is very interesting too. Discussing the genetics of South Asia has its political undertones, and he has done a commendable job of staying clear of that.

India in the Persianate Age (1000-1765) and The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier (1204-1760) by Richard Eaton. I had fun reading both of them together. Farsi was India's official and court language for more than 500 years, from the 13th century to the late 18th century. It was also interesting to note how these two books documented the two major regime changes India (South Asia) went through. The first was a transition from a Sanskritized age to the Persianate age. And then, from a Persianate age to the Anglicized age. The second book, about the medieval  history of Bengal covers the expansion of Islam in Bengal, that eventually caused the political division of the region. 

Humayun-nama, from the Three memoirs of Humayun (1508-1556) written by Humayun's sister, Gulbadan Begum. Humayun was the second Mughal emperor, who presided over a very shaky empire and lost his empire for 15 years until he regained it with some help. The memoirs cover the events from his birth to the reconquest in 1555. It felt like a continuation of the Baburnama, but from a different point of view. 

Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World, by Peter Zeihan. I got introduced to Peter Zeihan's lectures through Youtube's recommendation engine. Peter Zeihan happens to be a very funny and engaging presenter. The overall premise of the book is that the global system that the US built against the Soviets where nations were essentially bribed to be on our side is coming to an end. And the new system is going to look very different and chaotic, because the US can afford to de-globalize. 

Audiobook: Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world, by Jack Weatherford. This was the second listening. It was well narrated (and written), and I liked how the author connected the different threads together: the historical context of what was going on in the world, the basics of Mongol culture and tribal laws, and the long-term global impact of Mongol rule.

This is probably a year that I didn't read a book on investing after a long time. 

My previous book lists:

2019     2018     2017     2016    2015    2014    2008    2007

Interesting articles of 2020

A list of interesting articles that I read and shared in 2020.

Why visionary leadership fails: This article reminded me of the oft-quoted “Vision without execution is hallucination”, which apparently some trace to a Japanese proverb, which goes “Vision without action is a daydream”. https://hbr.org/2019/02/why-visionary-leadership-fails

Ben Evans: "On the Shoulder of Giants": I enjoy Ben Evans' writing (https://www.ben-evans.com/). This presentation analyzes the areas I spend a lot of time on, in my professional life: retail, entertainment, TV, and devices. The presentation also covers regulations and speculations about the next S-curve. The part about content moderation ("There is bad stuff on your platform -- take it down") seems prescient now. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/50363cf324ac8e905e7df861/t/5ed23bd3bdbbdb299cb6aa9f/1590836452410/2020+Benedict+Evans+Shoulders+of+Giants.pdf

A Guide for working (from home) for parents: My observation is that working spouses with kids less than 10 years of age had to bear the biggest stress of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. A few suggestions for them. https://hbr.org/2020/03/a-guide-for-working-from-home-parents

Meet Xenobot, an Eerie new kind of programmable organism: As a teenager, I remember watching a science-fiction comedy called Inner Space. The article reminded me of that movie, but it was a fascinating read. An artificial organism, built from the skin cells and heart cells of frogs is being used to understand the mysteries of cellular communication. I think this has tremendous potential in not only understanding bio-chemistry at the cellular level, but in developing medicine and medical delivery methods that operate at the cellular level. Do watch this research area. https://www.wired.com/story/xenobot/

Engineering promotions: An interesting twitter thread by Niall Murphy, ex-Google, ex-Amazon engineering leader on the good, bad, ugly of the Google engineering promotion process, from the perspective of a promoting manager. I reached out to him after reading this and had an interesting conversation with him. What's more interesting for me is in this context is if the business is promoting individuals that are creating the business impact, if the system is removing subjectivity and bias from the process, and if the promoted individuals work out well in the new role. https://twitter.com/niallm/status/1338083643902873600

The App Store debate: the story of ecosystems, by Steve Sinofsky (ex-President of the Windows Division at Microsoft), a tweet-storm that was later moved to a blog. Steve does a whirlwind history tour of the evolution of Windows OPK (OEM Porting Kit) and the PC ecosystem to justify why the Mobile App Stores are a good thing. But as he says in the last tweet, "the discussion is nuanced." https://medium.learningbyshipping.com/the-app-store-debate-a-story-of-ecosystems-938424eeef74

Reconstructing India's population history. This (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842210/) is a fascinating paper from a research team lead by David Reich into the genetic history of today's Indian population. More than the conclusions (none of which were surprising to me, at least) the mathematical method fascinated me. There are more details in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3522152/, and the research team has made the data and their software package available. 

Transition to Extinction: Pandemics in a connected world, Yaneer Bar-Yam, of New England Complex Systems Institute wrote this article in 2016 to warn all of us about a pathogen, spread by humans through air travel, causing a global pandemic. https://medium.com/complex-systems-channel/transition-to-extinction-pandemics-in-a-connected-world-153867fe98f4

It's time to build, by Marc Andreessen, is an inspirational call to action to all builders to build, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/

Say no to triangulated feedback: This article, by Esther Derby, a management consultant, showed up on my twitter feed a few months ago. It describes the messiness of triangulated feedback, where the boss is expected to play the middleman between two feuding team members. The conclusion of this article resonates with my own approach where I encourage team members to talk to each other directly instead of expecting me to pass the feedback along. https://www.estherderby.com/no-more-middleman-avoid-triangulated-feedback/

How to get noticed by your boss' boss: I sent this out to my team as a set of suggestions on how to get what I jokingly call Vitamin V (V for Visibility). I am myself conflicted about putting too much importance on visibility, or on getting noticed. In an ideal world, everyone gets measured by their achievements (and not activity, or self-advertisement) and the best way to get noticed is to keep doing one's job well. But in the real world, as the article suggests, raising your hand, building relationships, and challenging old ways does go a long way. https://hbr.org/2019/10/how-to-get-noticed-by-your-bosss-boss

When machine learning goes off the rails: There wasn't anything profound in this article, but a good checklist of things that can or will go wrong when letting machine learning algorithms make decisions. https://hbr.org/2021/01/when-machine-learning-goes-off-the-rails 

Are you an ethical leader: This is an interesting conversation between two Stanford GSB professors (Ken Shotts, Neil Malhotra) about building the mechanisms to lead ethically. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/are-you-ethical-leader

A fun twitter thread on software estimates: This thread, unsurprisingly, generated a lot of discussion on the internal work email list when I forwarded it. The ideas on this thread, at the micro-level, is consistent with my thinking that in a software project, there are four variables (features, resources, quality, and time) and the end-result is a function of how the team controlled all four. But the key is to get the teams to see the big picture as they plan and execute https://twitter.com/matryer/status/1313089174321405958 

DNA seen through the eyes of a coder: I read and re-read this article multiple times and I learn something new every time I read it. The author (a computer programmer from the Netherlands) has been updating this post since he first wrote it in 2001. The biggest surprise the first time I read it: 97% of our DNA is "commented out". But there are more surprises: https://berthub.eu/amazing-dna/ 

World orders, the last 400 years: 1620-2020

This is the blog version of a series of posts I had done in a WhatsApp group, to answer a simple question someone asked: "What does China want?" after the latest round of India-China skirmishes in the Himalayas. To answer this, I used the concepts of "world order" and "regime change". A world order is a setup where one or a few nations or empires determine how the rest of the world will work (and play) with each other; be it trade or monetary relationships, social or cultural interactions, how wars and treaties will be conducted. A regime change is what happens when an old world order gives way to a new world order. The forces that trigger a regime change are set in motion many decades in advance; through philosophical (thinking) changes, that trigger science and technology changes, that in turn trigger military and social changes, and those in turn trigger political changes.  

1648-1770: The Peace of Westphalia in Europe, Age of Empires in Asia. This was when Europe decided that it needed to stop fighting over religious causes, and create mechanisms for co-existence. This ended the bloodshed of the thirty years war (that started in 1618) and guaranteed state sovereignty and minority rights (to a large extent). Asia, on the other hand, was ruled by a set of centralized empires: Ottoman Turks, Safavid (Iran), Mughals (India), and Qing (China). India and China had the two largest economies in the world. The trade routes that Europe coveted were in the possession of the Ottomans. Vienna was almost lost to the Ottomans in 1683, if it wasn't for Jan Sobieski, the grand-duke of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. 

1770-1815: Regime change: The Revolutions. This was a period of the three major revolutions: the Industrial revolution, American revolution, and the French revolution. In Africa and Asia, the Western powers were slowly carving up the land and started sucking wealth out of the decaying, unindustrialized regimes to serve the needs of the industrializing west. The combination of colonization and industrialization created new trade networks, primarily centered around London and Paris. It slowly started creating the European middle class that wanted more participation in national politics. In the British American colonies, demands for "no taxation without representation" eventually led to a full blown revolution, their independence, and the creation of a new republic based on the "self-evident truth that all men are created equal". A combination of factors resulted in the overthrow of the French monarchy, abolishing the feudal system, and the subsequent reign of terror; but not without the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen. The French First republic eventually gave way to the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte. Although short-lived (1804-1815), the empire ruled over large parts of western and central Europe, and introduced Napoleonic code throughout the continent, one of the earliest widely adopted civil code in Europe. All three revolutions were triggered by a combination of scientific and technological changes, as well as changes inspired by the philosopher's thinking about individual rights and freedom.

1815-1914: Congress of Vienna, a new European world order: After the defeat of Napoleon and the fall of First French Empire; the four great powers (Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia) and (the restored) Bourbon France met at the Congress of Vienna to create a new order. The aim of the victorious powers was to preserve the imperial status-quo and the balance of power, and prevent the spread of radical liberal ideas that could threaten the foundation of the monarchies. The first part of this phase (1815-1848) is called the "Age of Metternich", after the Austrian foreign minister, Klemens von Metternich. In the Americas, almost all of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies had become independent, and the Monroe Doctrine was the defining order, although the US didn't develop an army or navy to actually enforce the doctrine. This order got its first shock in the revolutions of 1848 in Italy, France, Austria-Hungary, German states, and Denmark. The revolutions didn't succeed anywhere other than France: which brought Napoleon III to power. But they exposed enough cracks in the system.

The second shock was the German unification in 1871, following Prussia’s victory over France. This sowed the seeds for the building two parallel alliances that eventually led Europe into the madness of the First World War. The crumbling Turkish Empire was making the Balkans unstable, with the newly independent states (Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro) fighting for territory, and the great powers picking sides. And, during this period, the European powers and Japan had carved up all of Asia for itself.

1914-1918: Regime change, the first world war. The unraveling of the previous world order started soon after 1871 when, instead of striving for a "balance of power", the European powers renewed jostling for more power both in the continent and in the colonies in Asia and Africa. This resulted in two very unstable blocks (the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente) where a spark in one corner lit the flames of war across the entire continent and brought down four imperial systems. The world in 1914 was more interconnected than before, and yet that interconnectedness and dependence on trade couldn't prevent a global war.

1918-1939: The third European World order: Empires fall, but the republics fail. This was a failed world order. The new world order was created through the Treaty of Versailles, and the League of Nations, but resulted in a very unstable system. The new republics created out of the fallen empires were internally weak and unstable, the economic shocks (German and Austrian hyperinflation, Great Depression) generated enough impetus for fascism and communism. And soon enough, Japan had an empire big enough to threaten Britain and the US in the east, and Germany was rearmed enough to become the strongest military in Europe again. The new order to keep Germany down and to "end wars" crumbled in twenty years. 

1939-1945: Regime change: the second world war. The attempts of the western powers (Britain and France) to keep Nazi Germany focused on the east (Munich pact) and that of the Soviets to keep them away from Russia (Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) failed as all of Europe, Asia, and North Africa erupted in another world war. In the east, Imperial Japan's "co-prosperity sphere" was their attempt in securing the raw materials and labor needed for their continued industrialization. That push involved the taking of French Indo-China, (US) Philippines, British Malaysia and knocking on the doors of British India at one end, and Hawaii at the other end. The Nazi empire stretched from the Atlantic to the gates of Moscow. But eventually, the allies fought back. The highest casualties (military and civilian combined) from the second world war were in the Soviet Union and China.

One could argue that the whole period from 1912 (beginning of the first Balkan War) to 1945 (end of the second war) was an extended regime-change from an Imperial order run by the European Great Powers to a new world order run by the US and USSR.

1945-1991: The American-Soviet World Order. At the end of the second World War, Western Europe found itself occupied and divided. So, the victors took another shot at creating a new world order, through the United Nations. The UN now became the accepted forum to express international hatred (according to Yes, Prime Minister). As the Iron Curtain was falling, the Americans brought everyone they thought would be on their side together in the Bretton Woods system and NATO. Global trade and security, paid for by the US taxpayers, in return for being "on our side", united against communism. Everyone had to pick a side, and although there was this thing called the non-aligned movement, it was mostly a joke. In spite of miscalculations like the Cuban missile crisis, and misadventures in Vietnam and Afghanistan, both the superpowers acted relatively responsibly. 

1991-now: American order, on auto-pilot. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states made the US the sole superpower. The one highlight of this post-Soviet regime change has been the (relatively) low loss of blood, compared to the previous regime changes. The second highlight has been the ideological triumph of free market capitalism and its role in bringing over a billion people out of poverty in Asia. The first 15 years saw the expansion of democracy, creation of new countries, and the hope that democracy and liberalism will prevail all over the world. The institutions of the old world order expanded to include the former Soviet states (that were once part of the former Czarist Russian empire) to a point where many of them now have US troops protecting them from Russia. The post 9/11 War on Terror dragged on, with many forgetting why the US was there in the first place. And, after the economic crisis of 2008-2009 the voters in the western countries are expressing their dissatisfaction with the current system: through Brexit, Trumpism, the popularity of right-wing and left-wing populist movements in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Voters in many countries are opting for an "illiberal democracy" and trending towards authoritarianism. The triumphant march towards global liberal democracy and a free-trade system running under the benevolent and watchful eyes of the US security umbrella seems to have stalled. It is unclear if the current period will go down in history as another extended regime change, and if a new order will emerge peacefully. Or, if the old order has the capability of bouncing back?

Wait, what does this long history lesson have to do with what does China want? 

Well, what a nation wants has to be evaluated in the context of who is in charge. Right now, like it or not, the United States is still in charge. And China is acutely aware that there maybe a window of opportunity for it to shape a new world order, with a diminished role for the United States and an enhanced role for itself, at least in the Asia-Pacific.

I believe China wants to go back to its historical position of being at the "center of the world", the Middle Kingdom, at least as far as East Asia and the Pacific is concerned, but using the framework of the current order. The state driven capitalism of the last 40 years have given China a surplus that it is using to rebuild their country: economically, militarily, and diplomatically; to get back to a position so that the "century of humiliation" is never repeated again. But, first and foremost, China wants stability, continuity, and territorial integrity before it can project its power as the Middle Kingdom. Next, it wants its masses to stay employed, mainly by manufacturing goods that get easy access to markets in the Western World, and keep delivering the hard cash it needs to keep repeating the cycle. It wants guaranteed access to the Middle East oil, and to raw materials all over the globe to maintain its position. And therefore, it needs One Belt, One Road (or BRI: Belt Road Initiative). And yes, China does not want the West telling them how to run their shop, at least not publicly.

China's growth and success in the current world order will ensure that it has no incentive to bring the current globalized economic system down. But, it is also clear that it is a bit uncomfortable to keep playing (and maybe winning) the game when the rules have been written by someone else. Because, the one who wrote the rules (the United States) may start changing it in response to domestic political pressures. 

But China's regional situation isn't yet conducive to Middle Kingdom status. China has the largest number of neighbors of any country in the world: 20 (14 on land, 6 on the sea). There is a history of enmity, suspicion, and centuries of war with many of them. China's navy still has a long way to go before it can project the kind of power that the US projects now, or what Great Britain or Imperial Japan projected in the past. Again, China's one belt one road and its dual-use ports are examples of baby steps towards this power projection strategy. China's border skirmishes are also a way to project power externally and keep the masses nationalistic internally.

Whether China will be ready with an alternative order before the time runs out on the current order, only time will tell.

Post-script: The two books that helped me crystallize my thoughts on this topic are Henry Kissinger's World Order, and Peter Zeihan's Disunited Nations.

A brief history of close US presidential elections

Based on the opinion polls, it looks like the 2020 US presidential elections is going to be close. Let's look back and see previous elections that were close, contentious, and controversial. 

1796: This was the third presidential election and the first contested one. George Washington won the previous two uncontested. The rules of the electoral college (138 votes from 16 states) were different then. Every elector had two votes and they could cast one for the president, and one for the vice-president. The candidate with the most votes became the president, and the second highest vote winner became the vice-president. Also, in some states, the general voting public voted for electors in their ballots, not directly for the president. And, the commitment of the electors weren't that solid as they are now. John Adams, the sitting vice-president won 71 electoral votes and Thomas Jefferson won 68 electoral votes. So, Adams was declared the President and Jefferson was the Vice-President, even though they were contesting against each other. The 12th amendment changed the rules to make electors vote for a party ticket in 1804, but not before another close, confusing, and contentious election in 1800.

1800: In this election, the Thomas Jefferson/Aaron Burr Democratic-Republican ticket ran against the John Adams/Charles Pickney Federalist ticket. The electors had planned strategies to avoid getting their opponent the second highest vote, to prevent what happened in 1796. But then, both Jefferson and Burr got 73 votes, and the election went to the (outgoing) House of Representatives. According to the rules, each state cast one vote, and the winner needed to win 9 votes out of 16. For 35 rounds of voting (and Aaron Burr refusing to stand down), Jefferson could manage only 8. On the 36th ballot, after a lot of behind the scenes frenzy orchestrated to prevent a Burr presidency by Alexander Hamilton (who would later be fatally shot by Aaron Burr in a duel in 1804), Thomas Jefferson eventually won 10 states out of 16. Jefferson was elected president in February 1801, more than two months after the election. 

1824: There were four presidential candidates in this election: John Quincy Adams (John Adams' son, and secretary of state), Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay. The winner would have needed 131 out of the 261 electoral college votes. Andrew Jackson won the most electoral votes (99) and also the most popular votes (41.4%), but the election went to the House of Representatives to elect the President from the top three candidates (Jackson, Adams, Crawford). The winner needed a majority of 13 votes from 24 states. John Quincy Adams did just that, winning 13 states, but not after some behind the scenes lobbying by Henry Clay in favor of Adams. Andrew Jackson and his follower's accused the Adams and Clay of colluding and driving a "corrupt bargain". Jackson would run again in 1828 and win in a landslide.

1860: This is the election that triggered southern secession, and the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln won a majority in the Electoral College (180 out of 330), the most popular votes (40%), but he wasn't even on the ballot in 10 southern states, and won no support there. He had three opponents: Stephen Douglas (30% popular votes, 1 state with 12 electoral votes), John Breckenridge, a pro-slavery southern Democrat (18% popular vote, 11 states with 72 electoral votes) and John Bell (12% popular vote, 3 states with 39 electoral votes). Immediately after Lincoln's election, between December 20, 1860 and February 1, 1861, even before he was inaugurated, seven southern states declared secession and formed the Confederate States of America.

1876: This is considered the most controversial election in the US history. The candidates were Rutherford Hayes (Republican) and Samuel Tilden (Democratic). The election had the highest turnout in US history, at 81.8%, with at least one state reporting 101% turnout. The winner needed 185 out of 369 electoral votes. Although Tilden won the popular vote, he had 184 electoral votes, just one short. Hayes, on the other hand, had 165, with 20 electoral votes from Florida (4), Louisiana (8), South Carolina (7), and Oregon (1 out of 3) were in dispute.  The Congress appointed an Electoral commission to settle the disputed votes. The electoral commission eventually did settle it in favor of Hayes, but not before a hard bargain driven by the Democrats to stop reconstruction and move the federal troops out of the south. Remember, the Republican Party (Lincoln's party) was anti-slavery, and the Democratic party represented the interests of the whites in the South. This "Compromise of 1877" determined how the post-reconstruction society and electoral politics developed in the south.

2000: This was the Bush-Gore election that many of us remember. The election was decided when the US Supreme court overturned the decision of the Florida Supreme court to recount around 70,000 rejected ballots. This upheld the previously certified results declaring George W. Bush the winner in Florida by 537 votes, and awarding Florida's 25 electoral votes to him. This gave George W. Bush 271 electoral votes out of 538, and the presidency. 

Apart from these six very controversial and contentious elections, there were a few other close elections:

Winner losing the popular vote: Apart from 1824, 1876, and 2000; where the winner lost the popular vote, there were two more instances, one in 1888 (Benjamin Harrison) and in 2016 (Donald J. Trump) where the winner lost the popular votes to their opponents.

Other elections where the winner got less than 50% popular votes: 1844 (James K. Polk), 1848 (Zachary Taylor), 1856 (James Buchanan), 1860 (Abraham Lincoln), 1880 (James Garfield), 1892 (Grover Cleveland),  1912 (Woodrow Wilson), 1916 (Woodrow Wilson), 1948 (Harry Truman), 1960 (John F. Kennedy), 1968 (Richard Nixon), 1992 (Bill Clinton), 1996 (Bill Clinton). In all of these elections, there were third (or fourth party) candidates that polled anything between 0.4% to 20% votes. The last election when a third party candidate won a state (and therefore electoral votes) was in 1968 when pro-segregation George Wallace won in five southern states.

The history of the electoral college is a fascinating one, and is fundamental to the federal structure. It ensures that the smaller states can maintain their rights against the larger and the more populous ones. But a detailed discussion is a much larger topic.

My 2019 book list

This is the list of books I read in 2019:

The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes. I started the new year with this book, because my boss recommended it as part of discussing "how a nuclear reaction goes critical". Don't ask how the discussion started. This book turned out to be much more than just that, it is also a brief summary of how the western scientific system, as we know it today, was built brick by brick, idea by idea. I highly recommend it.

The French Revolution and What Went Wrong, by Stephen Clarke. This is a humorous and well-researched take on what triggered the French revolution, and how it all spiraled into senseless violence. It is a grim reminder of how something that starts with legitimate grievances can eventually lead to mob rule, even if it is inspired by idealism. 

The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America, by Marc Levinson. Before reading this book, I had not even heard of the Great A&P, or the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. It was the largest US retail company between 1915 and 1965. But by the time I came to the US, there was almost nothing left of it. The company had very modest beginnings in the 1850s, but through a series of innovations that took advantage of new technology, it pioneered chain stores, and later, super-markets. A&P's success caused backlash against it from the 1920s, that grew strong in the 1930s. A&P was pursued by state governments and also the federal government under Franklin Roosevelt with a combination of taxation, legislation, an anti-trust lawsuit, which A&P eventually lost. But what killed the company was its inability to innovate further, and becoming insular with ideas and leadership. 

Fear: Trump in the White House, by Bob Woodward. This was good primer to understand how the Trump White House functions. I kept reading the book expecting a subtle insight, but didn't get any. 

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management, by Roger Lowenstein. LTCM is the example I jokingly give to friends that Nobel winners of Economics end up bringing the world economy to its knees when they try to apply their theories in the real world. The reality, like always, is more nuanced, but this is an entertaining read.

Meditations: A New Translation, Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius is regarded as one of the most ablest Roman Emperor, a philosopher king, who ruled from CE 161-180. Meditations is a set of private notes to himself, based on his interpretation and ideas of Stoic philosophy. Yes, it does feel like his stream of consciousness, and they have nuggets of insight on personal behavior of rulers and leaders. But for someone who has been exposed to Vedantic philosophy that starts with a framework and then builds on that framework, I found it to be a bit scattered. I would still recommend it as a primer on self-control and duty.

1000 Years of Annoying the French, by Stephen Clarke. I liked Stephen Clarke's earlier book so much that I decided to read his other book as well. I was not disappointed. This one too, is a hilarious account of the 1000 year history of the Anglo-French relations. 

Winners take all: the elite charade of changing the world, Anand Giridharadas. One of my principles of expanding the breadth of what I read is to read books (or articles) by people whose public pronouncements irritate or annoy me, and Anand Giridharadas is one such person. However, I was really surprised at how I ended up agreeing with many of the problem statements of the book, even if I disagree with him on the approach, and the solution. Critiquing the book point by point is probably a blog post of its own. But I would honestly recommend the book. He is definitely on to something, that if left unaddressed, can lead to a collapse of our current system. Mr. Giridharadas may actually be advocating for that, in a way.

The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire, by William Dalrymple. This turned out to be a year of reading about large corporations, and about revolutions. I wonder why. This well-researched book details the rise of the second publicly traded corporation of the world (The Dutch East India Company was the first) and how it gradually turned into a state itself. It does detail the injustices and atrocities of the company, but also serves as a warning to states and nations on how not to relinquish their power. I highly recommend the book. 

Principles: Life and Work, by Ray Dalio. This book was popping up in almost all my social media feeds as a sponsored post, along with Bill Gates' recommendation. This is a good read, and one that can be used as a reference by leaders on how to build and run an organization. He has based it on his life and work, and his experience in running Bridgewater. Many of his principles align with my own management philosophy and ended up strengthening my own ideas. The most valuable part of the book, in my opinion, is Part III (Work Principles), but it is fascinating how he built up the framework to present the principles. I like the way he stresses on the importance of getting the culture right. Some of his work principles are right-on: "Don't worry about looking good - worry about achieving your goals", or "Be loyal to the common mission",  or "When you have alignment, cherish it", or "Build the organization around goals rather than tasks". The hardest part of his principles to apply right is the part about people. I highly recommend the book.

Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a daring escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill, by Candice Millard. This was my ritualistic reading of one book about Winston Churchill a year. 

This was a short list (but longer books), compared to the previous years. I realized that I started a few books that I didn't end up finishing, so they will show up the next year's list. 

Eastern Europe 1901-2001, in the shadow of empires

My interest in the first world war got rekindled in the last few weeks. I had read the Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914 (which I highly recommend) a few years ago. Recently, I started watching BBC's 10 part documentary on the first world war. I was thinking about this contagious stretch of territory from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, Aegean and Black Sea, sandwiched between the larger (and stronger) Germany and Russia, that houses around 180 million people today. Except for a brief period under the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (16th to 18th century), the fate of this land and its people seems to be to stay under the shadow of one or more empires or major powers. The 20th century seems to have been particularly brutal for each of these countries. Because of their fractured political history, many of these countries have been a tinderbox of ethnicities that have erupted from time to time. They have also, in some form or another been victims of the two biggest catastrophes of the 20th century: Nazism and communism. Many of these countries, actively or passively, participated in the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing of Jews during the second world war. 

This post briefly examines the 100 year history of each of these countries, from 1901 to 2001. 

Poland (2020: population 38 million,  per capita GDP (PPP) $35,651). In 1901, Poland did not exist as a sovereign state. Its territories were divided between Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. During the first world war, Poland was a major theater, when Russia attacked Germany, and later when Russia was beaten back after the battle of Tannenberg. After the treaty of Brest-Litovsk that the new Bolshevik government signed with the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Turkey, and Bulgaria), Russia ceded the land it controlled in Poland, including Warsaw, to the Central powers. And, after the defeat of the Central powers, an independent republic of Poland was created. That lasted 20 years, until Nazi Germany started the second world war by attacking and occupying western Poland, and Soviet Union, as part of the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop plan, occupied eastern Poland. In the second world war, Poland lost 6 million people, almost one-sixth of its pre-war population; including 3 million Polish Jews.

After the Soviet victory and occupation, a new Poland, with a communist government was installed, with its borders moved westwards. The East Prussian city of Koenigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad and still remains under Russian control. The Free City of Danzig became part of Poland again as Gdansk. The Gdansk shipyard was the birthplace of the Solidarity movement that played a role in the demise of communism. Today, Poland is part of NATO (joined in 1999) as well as the European Union (joined in 2004). 

Czechia (2020: population 11 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $40,428) In 1901, what is today's Czechia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the defeat and break-up of Austria-Hungary, an independent Czechoslovakia, comprised of Bohemia (where Prague is),  Moravia-Silesia (Brno),  parts of older Hungarian kingdom (Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia) was formed. It was a multi-ethnic unitary state with Czech, Slovak, Polish, German, Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Romanian speaking people. So, ethnic tensions were a feature of the republic. In 1938, as part of the Munich agreement, without involving Czechoslovakia, Britain and France allowed the German speaking Sudetenland region of Bohemia to be merged with Nazi Germany. After that, a part of the Slovak territory was ceded to Hungary. In 1939, Nazi Germany occupied what remained of Bohemia. A Slovak state declared independence, and Hungary occupied Carpathia. The Red Army occupied Czechoslovakia in 1945, and the German residents were expelled. A communist government was put in power 1948. Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviets in 1968 during the Prague Spring reforms and protests. The communist party rule collapsed in 1989, and Vaclav Havel became president. In 1992, Slovakia broke up to become an independent republic. Today, Czechia is part of NATO (joined in 1999) as well as the European Union (joined in 2004). 

Slovakia (2020: population 5.5 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $32,616) Slovakia too, started the 20th century as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  The common Czechoslovak history is covered in the earlier section. The main difference between the Czech portion and the Slovak portion is that the Slovak portion was under Hungary, in the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy; and got less autonomy. Slovakia had been part of the kingdom of Hungary for almost 1000 years, even through the Ottoman domination of Hungary. After the first World War, Slovakia was incorporated in the independent Czechoslovakia. Between 1939-1945 a Nazi puppet Slovak state was established, which collapsed as the Red Army invaded. Soon after the communist rule in Czechoslovakia collapsed in 1989, the Slovak republic declared its independence in 1992. Today, Slovakia is part of NATO (joined in 1999) as well as the European Union (joined in 2004). It adopted the Euro as its currency in 2009.

Hungary (2020: population 10 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $31,578) In 1901, Hungary was part of the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Austria-Hungary was established as part of a compromise signed in 1867 that restored the sovereignty of the former kingdom of Hungary. The kingdom contained Transylvania which is now part of Romania. This union was dissolved in 1918 after Austria-Hungary lost the war. Between 1918-20, as part of the post-war peace treaty and subsequent wars in Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Serbia, the kingdom of Hungary lost 72% of its territory. After that, Hungary gradually drifted towards Germany and Italy internationally, and towards anti-semitism domestically. During the second world war, Hungary was part of the Axis powers (Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy), and temporarily regained some of its lost territories by invading Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. German troops occupied Hungary in 1944, but they were driven out by the advancing Soviet troops in 1945. After that, Hungary became a communist state. In 1990, as communism was collapsing in Eastern Europe, Hungary transitioned to a democratic form of government. Today, Hungary is part of NATO (joined in 1999) as well as the European Union (joined in 2004).

Romania (2020: population 20 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $24,000 est.) In 1901, the kingdom of Romania was a newly independent kingdom formed through the personal union of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Romania's world war history is a story of swinging loyalties. Although Romania was secretly allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary, it stayed neutral in the first world war until the Entente (France and Britain) promised them territory. During and after the first world war, Romania gained territories from Austria-Hungary (Transylvania, that already had ethnic Romanians,  and Bukovina) and Russia (Bessarabia: part of modern day Moldova and Ukraine). The new territories had German, Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian minorities, which led to flare-ups in the 1920s as well as the loss of northern Transylvania to Hungary. By the late 1930s, King Carol II declared a royal dictatorship. During the second world war, Romania wanted to stay on the winning side. It started neutral, but then lost Bessarabia to the Soviet Union in 1940. When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Romanians joined the Nazis and went as far as Stalingrad with the invading Nazis. But when the Soviets attacked in 1944, King Michael I led a successful coup and aligned with the Soviets. The Romanians then marched with the Soviets and recovered the part of Transylvania that they had lost to Hungary. But it lost its Moldovan territories to the Soviet Union. Romania became a communist country following the Soviet occupation, and it stayed that way until Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown and executed in 1989. Today, Romania is part of NATO (joined in 2004) as well as the European Union (joined in 2007).

Moldova (2020: population 3.5 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $5,700) In 1901, the current territory of Moldova was divided between the Kingdom of Romania and Russia. After the first world war, some of the Russian parts went to Romania that the Soviet Union later regained and incorporated into the Moldovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, inside Ukraine SSR. After 1940, it incorporated Bessarabia into Moldavia and created the Moldovian SSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moldova declared independence in 1991. A separatist movement in Transnistria controls a tiny strip of land, and is an unrecognized but a defacto independent republic inside Moldova. Moldova is not a member of NATO or the European Union.

Ukraine (2020: population 42 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $10,130) In 1901, today's Ukriane was divided between Austria-Hungary (Galicia, administered by Austria) and the Russian Empire. Kiev, the capital was of Ukraine had been a part of Russia since 1667. Ukrainians fought on both sides in the first world war. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the end of the first world war, between the end of 1918 and August 1920, Kiev, the capital, changed hands sixteen times. From 1921 to 1991, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union as Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, except for a period of two years between 1941-1943 when it was under Nazi occupation. In 1954, as a sign of goodwill, the former Khanate of Crimea (that was part of Russia since 1783) was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became independent. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014, and since then, the eastern part of Ukraine has been held by pro-Russian separatists. Ukraine, as a country, is emotionally split between the pro-EU west and the pro-Russia east. As of 2020, Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe, along with Moldova.

Bulgaria (2020: population 7 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $22,304) In 1901, Bulgaria was an autonomous principality within the Ottoman Empire. In 1908, Bulgaria declared full independence from the Ottoman Turks. It was part of the Balkan League (along with Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro) that defeated the Ottoman empire in the first Balkan war of 1912-13. However, dissatisfied with its share of its spoils, it declared war on Greece and Serbia again in 1913, starting the second Balkan War, which resulted in loss of territory. In the first World War, Bulgaria started neutral, but later sided with the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey) and had initial victories over Serbia and Macedonia. However, by the end of the war, it was not able to hold on to any of the territories, and suffered a national catastrophe for the second time in five years, including paying war reparations. Between 1919 and 1941, Bulgaria was politically unstable, with coups, successful and unsuccessful assassinations of its leaders. In the Second World War, Bulgaria started out neutral, but later joined the Axis powers in 1941. As the war progressed, Bulgaria occupied parts of Greece, Serbia, and Macedonia. But when Nazi Germany declared war on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Bulgaria didn't, and tried to stay away from active conflict with the Soviet Union. By 1944, when it was clear that the Nazis were losing, Bulgaria first declared neutrality, and then under Soviet pressure, declared war on Germany. This created a situation where Bulgaria was simultaneously at war with all four major belligerents: Germany, UK, US, and USSR. At the end of the second world war, Bulgaria was occupied by the Soviets and a communist regime was installed. In 1990, Bulgaria transitioned to parliamentary democracy. Today, Bulgaria is part of NATO (joined in 2004) as well as the European Union (joined in 2007).

Serbia (2020: population 7 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $17,617) In 1901, the newly independent Kingdom of Serbia was looking at ways to get ethnic Serbians under both the Ottoman Turk and the Austro-Hungarian empire in its fold. In the treaty the recognized Serbia's formal independence from Ottoman rule, in 1878, Serbia was explicitly prohibit from doing so, when Bosnia-Herzegovina was put under Austria-Hungary. This would eventually lead to the spark that would start the first world war. In the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, Serbia gained additional Ottoman territory, and also became a larger threat to Austria-Hungary, because it became an anchor for the unification of the Serbs and other southern Slavs in Austria-Hungary. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist led Austria to declare war on Serbia, and the inter-dependent alliances flared up into the first world war. Serbia suffered major losses in the war, including losing more than half its Army. But as Austria-Hungary collapsed by the end of the war, a new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed in 1918 by merging Serbia with the Austro-Hungarian states of Croatia and Slovenia. This was officially named the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, under the personal dictatorship of King Alexander I. The alliance of the Serbs and the Croats were always uneasy, with Serbia vying for an upper hand and centralization, and the Croats seeking more autonomy. In the second world war, Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers, and a rump Serbian territory was placed under the military occupation of the German Wehrmacht. Communist partisans led by Josip Broz Tito regained Yugoslavia by 1945, and a one-party communist state was established. Tito ruled until 1980, but after his death and the collapse of communism, Yugoslavia broke up descended into civil war along the old ethnic lines. In 2008, the ethnic Albanian majority area of Kosovo declared its independence, although Serbia (and Russia) have not recognized it. Serbia is not yet a member of NATO or the European Union.

Croatia (2020: population 4 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $24,100 est) In 1901, Croatia was part of Austria-Hungary, governed by the Kingdom of Hungary, as part of the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement of 1868. Croats and Serbs speak a mutually understandable language, but Croatian is written in the Latin script while Serbian is written in the Cyrillic script. This is very similar to the story of Hindi and Urdu: the (almost) same language written with two different scripts. Also, Croatians are Catholic and Serbians are Orthodox Christians. After the breakup of Austria-Hungary in 1918, Croatia joined with Slovenia and Serbia to build what would become Yugoslavia. In the second world war, when Yugoslavia was occupied by the Axis powers, a Nazi backed independent Croatia was setup that collapsed before the end of the war. It then became part of the communist ruled Yugoslavia, which lasted until 1991. Croatia declared independence in 1991 as Yugoslavia broke up into a civil war that lasted until 1995 for Croatia. Today, Croatia is a member of NATO (since 2009) and the European Union (since 2013).

Bosnia and Herzegovina (2020: population 3.3 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $11,400 est). In 1901, Bosnia-Herzegovina was ruled by Austria-Hungary, as part of the 1878 peace treaty following the Russo-Turkish War. It was officially considered part of the Ottoman-Turk Empire, although it was de-facto governed by Austria-Hungary. The people were Bosnian Muslims (still loyal to the Ottomans), Orthodox Serbs (sympathetic to Serbia), and Catholic Croats. In 1908, Austria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was recognized by Serbia, Russia, and the Ottomans. On 28 June 1914, the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo (the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina), by a member of a secret Serbian-supported movement, Young Bosnia sparked the first world war. After the war, Bosnia joined the union that would eventually become the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the second world war, when Yugoslavia was occupied by the Nazis, Bosnia was ceded to the independent state of Croatia. After the second world war, it became part of communist Yugoslavia. After Yugoslavia collapsed, Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence in 1992, which was opposed by the Bosnia Serbs, and that started the Bosnian war (1992-1995) between the Bosniak Muslims, Croats, and ethnic Serbs. The conflict ended in December 1995 when the parties signed the Dayton Agreement and they agreed to have the peace treaty enforced by a NATO-led peacekeeping force. Bosnia is not a member of NATO or the EU, although it has applied for membership of both. 

Slovenia (2020: population 2 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $40,344). In 1901, today's Slovenia was part of Austria-Hungary. After the first world war, it became part of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes that eventually became the kingdom of Yugoslavia. During the second world war, Slovenia was divided between  Fascist Italy, Hungary, and the Nazi puppet state of Croatia. It got re-incorporated into Yugoslavia in 1945. After the fall of communism, Slovenia declared independence in 1991 and it succeeded in breaking out of Yugoslavia following a Ten-Day War. Today, Slovenia is a member of NATO (since 2004) and the European Union (since 2004). It adopted the Euro in 2007.

North Macedonia (2020: population 2 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $17,378) In 1901, today's North Macedonia was part of the Ottoman-Turk empire. After the Balkan Wars it was annexed into Serbia, and during the first world war, it was occupied by Bulgaria. After the end of the first world war, it became part of Yugoslavia. During the second world war, it was divided between Bulgaria and Fascist Italian occupied Albania. After the war, it was re-incorporated in Yugoslavia. Following the break-up of Yugoslavia, it declared independence in 1991, and it stayed relatively peaceful through the Yugoslav civil war, compared to neighboring Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia, in-spite of tensions between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. North Macedonia is a member of NATO (joined in 2020) and has begun talks to join the European Union.

Montenegro (2020: population 600,000, per capita GDP (PPP) $1,977) In 1901, Montenegro was an independent principality that became a Kingdom in 1910. During the first world war, Montenegro was occupied by Austria-Hungary between 1916-18. After the war, it joined the union that would become Yugoslavia. During the second world war, Fascist Italy occupied it. After the second world war, it joined Yugoslavia again. During the Yugoslavian civil war, it stayed aligned with Serbia. In 2006, following a referendum, it declared independence. Montenegro is part of NATO (joined in 2017) but not a member of the European Union. 

Albania (2020: population 3 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $14,866) In 1901, Albania was part of the Ottoman-Turk empire. In 1912, Albania declared independence that eventually established the Principality of Albania in 1914. The first world war kept Albania under political confusion, with neighboring Italy, Greece, and Serbia claiming and occupying territory. Even after the first world war, Yugoslavia and Italy had claims on Albanian territory. In 1925, it became a protectorate of Italy. During the second world war, it was occupied by Fascist Italy, and later by Nazi Germany. After 1944, it become a communist dictatorship that eventually transitioned into a democratic republic in 1992. Albania is a member of NATO (since 2009), but not a member of the European Union.

Greece (2020: population 11 million, per capita GDP (PPP) $30,357). Greece is considered a southern European nation, and not part of Eastern Europe. But its history is tied to the Balkans. In 1901, the Kingdom of Greece was a constitutional monarchy under the Danish George I, the grandfather of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and the brother-in-law of Edward VII. Greece had been involved with wars against Ottoman Turkey that continued until 1922. The monarchy was abolished in 1924, and restored in 1936. During the second world war, Greece fought against Italian invasion, but fell in 1941 when Nazi Germany dispatched troops. Greece was liberated by the Allies in 1944. It was ruled by a military junta between 1967–1974. Greece is a member of NATO (since 1952) and of the EU (since 1981). It adopted the Euro in 2001. 

Baltic states: Latvia (2020 pop: 2 million, GDP per capita: $27,300 est),  Lithuania (2020 pop: 3 million, GDP per capita $38,751), Estonia (2020 pop: 1.3 million, GDP per capita $37,606). In 1901, all the Baltic states were part of the Russian Empire. They declared independence from Russia after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, but by 1940, the Soviets had reconquered the Baltic states. They declared their independence again after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. All three countries are members of the EU and NATO since 2004. Estonia adopted the Euro in 2011, Latvia in 2014, and Lithuania in 2015. 

This was a very short summary of the hundred years of the "land between the greater powers". It is very hard to predict what the next hundred years will mean for the region. Russia would definitely want its empire back, in some form or another. Given Russia's long memory of attacks by the French (1812) and the Germans (1914, 1941), there is very little chance of having long-term peace with the eastward expanding European Union and NATO. As the Yugoslav civil war has shown, long-term peace still needs the involvement the United States, (through NATO) but it is unclear if the US has the appetite to serve as the peacekeeper forever. The European Union can serve as a unifying common market and a monetary union, but a political, fiscal, or military union is a distant dream, and perhaps undesirable. The whole region is so fractured, with memories of ethnic and religious conflicts going back to thousands of years, it is inconceivable that there will be any thing other than dozens of nationalities and ethnicities trying to coexist. The closest stable model is that of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, but it is very hard to build a stable multi-ethic state in this region.

I have written this more as my notes to help me understand the 20th century history of Eastern Europe and not as an academic paper. If there are errors in the narrative, or my understanding, please leave a comment and I will correct it.