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jkanownik 's review for:
The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
by William Rees-Mogg, James Dale Davidson
I just read The Sovereign Individual and The People's History of the United States back to back and felt a comparison between the two was the best way to review them. Both books have more in common that one would expect. Both are extremely biased towards their viewpoints. Both dismiss the current dominant political parties in the US as more similar to each other than different. Both think current political leaders are severely lacking and yearn for governments that work better for the people that they support. Both were written over 20 years ago and recently received updated modern introductions.
The Sovereign Individual's updated introduction has Peter Thiel asking the reader to focus on what the authors got right over what they got wrong. That gets harder and harder to do as time goes by. The authors point to Hong Kong as the country of the future, spend a lot of time talking about Clinton having Vincent Foster murdered and they definitely weren't talking about the rise of Dogecoin when they talk about digital currency. They make some interesting points but it is so hard to separate those amongst the piles and piles of unsupported libertarian evangilism. If you took any chapter from this book and submitted it as a college essay you'd be lucky to get a C. The majority of the book is unsupported narrative and wishful projection. There has to be a better book than this that explores the trends brought up here. If you know of one let me know. Bonus points if it speaks to motives other than hoarding wealth as the meaning for life.
At one point A People's History of the United States felt like a breath of fresh air. That time has passed. It is too meandering and disjointed to retain it's value once a lot of the history it highlights is more well known. I appreciate that Zinn at least admits to his biases in the concluding chapter. That is something Davidson and Rees-Mogg should have done in their book.
Neither of these books are particularly bad. They present some interesting ideas. However, I can't recommend either one today. If you are interested in either book read a summary or longer review and move on. You'd be better off reading collections of disparate essays on the topics that these books cover. Read more contemporary work from authors that were influenced by them.
The Sovereign Individual's updated introduction has Peter Thiel asking the reader to focus on what the authors got right over what they got wrong. That gets harder and harder to do as time goes by. The authors point to Hong Kong as the country of the future, spend a lot of time talking about Clinton having Vincent Foster murdered and they definitely weren't talking about the rise of Dogecoin when they talk about digital currency. They make some interesting points but it is so hard to separate those amongst the piles and piles of unsupported libertarian evangilism. If you took any chapter from this book and submitted it as a college essay you'd be lucky to get a C. The majority of the book is unsupported narrative and wishful projection. There has to be a better book than this that explores the trends brought up here. If you know of one let me know. Bonus points if it speaks to motives other than hoarding wealth as the meaning for life.
At one point A People's History of the United States felt like a breath of fresh air. That time has passed. It is too meandering and disjointed to retain it's value once a lot of the history it highlights is more well known. I appreciate that Zinn at least admits to his biases in the concluding chapter. That is something Davidson and Rees-Mogg should have done in their book.
Neither of these books are particularly bad. They present some interesting ideas. However, I can't recommend either one today. If you are interested in either book read a summary or longer review and move on. You'd be better off reading collections of disparate essays on the topics that these books cover. Read more contemporary work from authors that were influenced by them.