Rational Optimist

It's good to be back home after a busy week traveling!

My next book for A Year of Books is The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.

Two of the books I've read this year -- The Better Angels of Our Nature: and Why Nations Fail -- have explored how social and economic progress work together to make the world better. The Better Angels argues for that the two feed off each other, whereas Why Nations Fail argues that social and political progress ultimately controls the economic progress a society makes. This next book argues the opposite -- that economic progress is the greater force is pushing society forward. I'm interested to see which idea resonates more after exploring both frameworks.

This is also the second one of Ridley's books I've read this year. Here's a photo from a few weeks back of me reading his book Genome with my dog Beast.

Why Nations Fail

My next book for A Year of Books is is Why Nations Fail.

It's mind-blowing that almost half the world -- almost 3 billion people -- live on $2.50 a day or less. More than one billion people live on $1 a day or less.

This book explains how these families invest their money to best support themselves.

I hope reading this provides some insight into ways we can all work to support them better as well.