Happy holidays – and enjoy reading!

My selection of holiday reads invites you on a trip through the past, from East to West. These three books are the right companions if you would like to conclude the year 2021 with new perspectives on the fascinating interplay between history, economics and politics. As I wrote in my summer reading list: A better understanding of the past helps us understand the future.

Peter Frankopan: “The Silk Roads”

Do you know where the earth’s economic center of gravity currently is? The underlying calculation projects it to the nearest point on the earth’s surface after weighting locations by GDP in three dimensions. As you can see below, the dots have been constantly moving for 200 years: First from Asia toward Europe and then into the opposite direction which the forecast for the year 2025 still follows.

When I recently came across this map, it reminded me of Peter Frankopan’s research for “The Silk Roads”. In this book, he outlines how East and West first encountered each other on these trade routes, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures and religions which still influence our lives today.

Jung Chang: “Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister”

China is frequently on our mind, but nevertheless hard to grasp and read from outside. Jung Chang chooses a different approach to look at the country. She tells the story of modern China’s emergence through the story of a family and its three daughters. Their biographies provide a fresh perspective on Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek and the relationship between China and Taiwan. The book reads like family history, but it’s actually world history and it helped me to broaden and deepen my understanding of China.

Binyamin Appelbaum: “The Economists’ Hour”

This book sheds light on a question that truly deserves reflection over the holidays. Many societies feel challenged by inequality and the consequences of it – so how should we react? While I remain strongly convinced that nothing beats a free market economy to create wealth, I also believe that we need sensible redistribution policies to maintain a society of equal opportunity. Binyamin Appelbaum describes the leading streams of economic thought that have shaped the debate about optimal policy frameworks for the economy.

Whether you spend the festive season reading or not: I wish you and your loved ones happy holidays and all the best for the new year 2022.