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richardiporter's review against another edition
4.0
Who should read it: If you think about national power, politics, economics, history and things like this you should consider giving this a read.
I enjoyed the book, I appreciated the stated humility combined with ambitious scale and scope of identifying causes and effects, principles regarding them, and using them to broadly forecast the future.
The downside risk mitigation played into particular passions of mine but leaves the reader to build their own tactical playbook.
-Political organizing for power and wealth sharing without violence?
- Political calls on representatives to avoid war unless ther eis no option, ESPECIALLY with a rising power that may become the next domininant empire like China?
- Cultivate an ability to personally move across borders, to LEGALLY stash assets in multiple legal jurisdictions and establish good reasons to be there, to diversify your wealth as much as you can, to diversify where you can live as much as you can
These seem to be logical extensions but Dalio chose to not be prescriptive with advice merely descriptive of cycles, metrics and methods of observing cyclical behavior in markets, politics, power, currency and the like.
Unless you are a big investor or a government official or in charge of policy for a massive multinational or just personally interested in this stuff from historical or present day perspectives the above 3 points and paying occasional attention to the news of trouble between the US and China could save you the read time.
I may refer back to pages from this book in the future and suggest it to others, I likely wont read it all again.
I enjoyed the book, I appreciated the stated humility combined with ambitious scale and scope of identifying causes and effects, principles regarding them, and using them to broadly forecast the future.
The downside risk mitigation played into particular passions of mine but leaves the reader to build their own tactical playbook.
-Political organizing for power and wealth sharing without violence?
- Political calls on representatives to avoid war unless ther eis no option, ESPECIALLY with a rising power that may become the next domininant empire like China?
- Cultivate an ability to personally move across borders, to LEGALLY stash assets in multiple legal jurisdictions and establish good reasons to be there, to diversify your wealth as much as you can, to diversify where you can live as much as you can
These seem to be logical extensions but Dalio chose to not be prescriptive with advice merely descriptive of cycles, metrics and methods of observing cyclical behavior in markets, politics, power, currency and the like.
Unless you are a big investor or a government official or in charge of policy for a massive multinational or just personally interested in this stuff from historical or present day perspectives the above 3 points and paying occasional attention to the news of trouble between the US and China could save you the read time.
I may refer back to pages from this book in the future and suggest it to others, I likely wont read it all again.
omikun's review against another edition
3.0
I like the idea of looking at historical patterns to chart out the rise and fall of states. The insights into China are great. That China are averse to military confrontations (art of war reference how best way to win a war is to not get into one). US currency status as world reserve allows US to print money without immediately going into hyperinflation.
I think this is a great introductory into these areas but not a lot of insightful takeaways.
I think this is a great introductory into these areas but not a lot of insightful takeaways.
gbatts's review against another edition
I couldn’t with this book. It’s written like a 500+ page brochure. The content is so repetitive and it distinctly feels like he’s started with the answer and worked backwards from there.
phoenix0's review against another edition
3.0
The idea that hese macro trends tying all of human history together is alluring. If only this book could have been a quarter of its length. Truly, making a book with just the bold parts would have made this so much more effective.
DNF
DNF
sklation1987's review against another edition
5.0
Es wird anhand eines Modells bestehend aus 18 Determinanten, die sich in Zyklen bzw. Phasen vorteilhaft oder nachteilig entwickeln, erläutert, warum Großmächte im Lauf der Zeit ihre Macht verlieren und abgelöst werden. Dabei werden Großmächte wie Niederlande, Großbritannien, USA und die lt. Autor aktuell aufstrebende Macht China beleuchtet. Beschrieben wird auch anhand der Tendenzen der Determinanten, warum USA laufend ihren Status verliert und eventuell von China überholt wird.
ashcomb's review against another edition
3.0
History repeats itself, maybe not in the same place and exactly at the same time, yet there it is going around and around. Ray Dalio proposes that nations (more like empires) have six stages between their rise and fall:
"Stage one is when the new order begins, and the new leadership consolidates power...
Stage two, when the resource-allocation system and government bureaucracies are built and refined...
Stage three, when there is peace and prosperity...
Stage four, when there are great excesses in spending and debt and the widening of wealth and political gaps...
Stage five, when there are very bad financial conditions and intense conflicts...
Stage six, when there are civil wars/revolutions..." Page 152.
Ad infinitum.
What leads to the rise of the nations is education, innovations, and openness to the world, besides other factors mentioned in the book. What leads to the destruction is the wealthy possessing more and more of the shared assets for themselves. That leads to bad financial debt arrangements and, in the end, disorder.
Ray Dalio makes a compelling case here about how these cycles run and why. He goes into detail to reason his arguments through history. Of course, this idea of economic cycles is not a new thing. Actually, it has been proposed several times before. But what makes this a good book is how it simplifies the matter and connects the dots between stagnation, the fall of education and innovations, and the wealthy using their own nations as their personal piggy banks. He goes beyond that, reflecting on what the future might be like. Ray Dalio argues China will rise as the next leading empire while the USA is heading down to fall because of its reckless money borrowing and other political decisions. On the other hand, China is more sensible with its economics, and its education levels are rising. Ray Dalio's views about the rise of China are colored a little by his favoritism for the nation and his personal ties there, but I don't think he is wrong. If you remove his personal stories and look at his proposed markers when an empire is on the rise, he might be right.
Yet, the book has its downfalls. It is repetitive, weak, shallow, and makes leaps with its arguments, and the graphics in the book are horrendous. For example, there was one occasion where you were supposed to compare nations, and the data provided on each nation's graphics were presented differently. Other graphics are just messy or don't accurately present the point trying to be made across. Not all were bad. There were some excellent charts there, but for me, the tables were one of the weakest things in the book, in general.
So what do I think after reading the book? The same thing I thought before reading it. That nations will repeat their cycles, especially the big empires, and the little countries might sail onwards if they are not swept into the global conflicts, which they often are. What did I learn? Fiat currency isn't a new thing. It is a pretty old concept to get out of a jam where nations and the rich are running out of money/assets to be hoarded for themselves, so new debt arrangements are needed to continue the party, and at some point, there will be a great reset.
Should you read this book? Maybe. But be critical when you read it because the book really oversimplifies things and cuts corners to make these grand patterns appear.
Thank you for reading and have a great day <3
"Stage one is when the new order begins, and the new leadership consolidates power...
Stage two, when the resource-allocation system and government bureaucracies are built and refined...
Stage three, when there is peace and prosperity...
Stage four, when there are great excesses in spending and debt and the widening of wealth and political gaps...
Stage five, when there are very bad financial conditions and intense conflicts...
Stage six, when there are civil wars/revolutions..." Page 152.
Ad infinitum.
What leads to the rise of the nations is education, innovations, and openness to the world, besides other factors mentioned in the book. What leads to the destruction is the wealthy possessing more and more of the shared assets for themselves. That leads to bad financial debt arrangements and, in the end, disorder.
Ray Dalio makes a compelling case here about how these cycles run and why. He goes into detail to reason his arguments through history. Of course, this idea of economic cycles is not a new thing. Actually, it has been proposed several times before. But what makes this a good book is how it simplifies the matter and connects the dots between stagnation, the fall of education and innovations, and the wealthy using their own nations as their personal piggy banks. He goes beyond that, reflecting on what the future might be like. Ray Dalio argues China will rise as the next leading empire while the USA is heading down to fall because of its reckless money borrowing and other political decisions. On the other hand, China is more sensible with its economics, and its education levels are rising. Ray Dalio's views about the rise of China are colored a little by his favoritism for the nation and his personal ties there, but I don't think he is wrong. If you remove his personal stories and look at his proposed markers when an empire is on the rise, he might be right.
Yet, the book has its downfalls. It is repetitive, weak, shallow, and makes leaps with its arguments, and the graphics in the book are horrendous. For example, there was one occasion where you were supposed to compare nations, and the data provided on each nation's graphics were presented differently. Other graphics are just messy or don't accurately present the point trying to be made across. Not all were bad. There were some excellent charts there, but for me, the tables were one of the weakest things in the book, in general.
So what do I think after reading the book? The same thing I thought before reading it. That nations will repeat their cycles, especially the big empires, and the little countries might sail onwards if they are not swept into the global conflicts, which they often are. What did I learn? Fiat currency isn't a new thing. It is a pretty old concept to get out of a jam where nations and the rich are running out of money/assets to be hoarded for themselves, so new debt arrangements are needed to continue the party, and at some point, there will be a great reset.
Should you read this book? Maybe. But be critical when you read it because the book really oversimplifies things and cuts corners to make these grand patterns appear.
Thank you for reading and have a great day <3
ceabezaurio's review against another edition
5.0
Me pareció un libro sumamente interesante por la perspectiva de largo plazo que propone. Si bien no es tan sencillo poder contrastar los datos en forma independiente, si creo que es muy valorable que se proponga una mirada global y cíclica del desarrollo de los diferentes países/imperios a lo largo de la historia.