Books I Read during My Service

First of all, I’m very grateful that I worked for the Deputy Chief of Staff of ROK-US Combined Forces Command throughout my service. Not only were my co-workers excellent to work with, but I wouldn’t have the time to read the long list of books below had it not been for my sinecure position. 

 

I’m also grateful for the Defence Ministry grant for enlisted soldiers. It twice gave me a 120 thousand won aid to buy many of the books below. 

List of the books I read:

   

Baker, Jim. Crossroads: A Popular History of Malaysia and Singapore (2nd Edn). Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd, 2008.

   I read from where the contact began between the Malays and the Indians to the end. Toward the end, the Malaysian efforts to integrate ethnic Malays into the economy captured my attention. Especially intriguing was how corruption and incompetence grew in the process, which reminded me of South Africa after the abolition of the Apartheid.

 

Quinn, William and John D. Turner. Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles. Cambridge University Press, 2022.

 

Diamond, Jared. Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis. Back Bay Books, 2020.

 

Vernon, James. Modern Britain: 1750 to the Present. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

 

 

Muhlhahn, Klaus. Making China Modern: From the Great Qing to Xi Jinping. Harvard University Press, 2020.

    The Daoguang Depression (circa 1820 to 1850) showed how seemingly far-fetched factors can lead to the grinding downfall of a superpower. In this case, it was the sudden shortage of silver on the eve of the Mexican Independence that triggered the depression as well as the culmination of over-exploitation of the soil through agriculture in the 18th century.

 

Fenby, Jonathan. The History of Modern France. Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2016.

 

Service, Robert. The Penguin History of Modern Russia: from Tsarism to the Twenty-First Century. Penguin History, 2020.

 

Abrahamian, Ervand. A History of Modern Iran (2nd Edn). Cambridge University Press, 2018.

   Rapid centralization of power in the 20th century.


Radcliff, Pamela Beth. Modern Spain: 1808 to the Present. Wiley Blackwell, 2017.


Chandra, Bipan. History of Modern India. Orient BlackSwan. 2014


Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany (3rd Edn). Cambridge University Press, 2019. 


Zurcher, Erik J. Turkey: A Modern History (4th Edn). I.B. Tauris, 2017.


Rogan, Eugene. The Arabs: A History. Penguin Books, 2017.


Gilmour, David. The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.


Mason, R. H. P. and J. G. Caiger. A History of Japan. Tuttle Publishing, 1997.


Wang, Joseph. Central Banking 101. 2020

Guha, Ramachandra. India After Gandhi (3rd Edn). Picador, 2023. 

 

Hamnett, Brian. A Concise History of Mexico. Cambridge University Press, 1999.

 

홍기빈. 어나더 경제사 1. 시월, 2023년.

 

홍기빈. 어나더 경제사 2. 시월, 2023년.

 

Rady, Martyn. The Habsburgs: To Rule the World. Basic Books, 2022.

 

Lepore, Jill. These Truths: A History of the United States. Norton, 2019.

 

Greenspan, Alan and Adrian Wooldridge. Capitalism in America. Penguin Books, 2019.

 

Hett, Benjamin Carter. The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic. Holt Paperbacks, 2023.

 

Reid, Michael. Forgotten Continent: A History of the New Latin America. Yale University Press, 2017.

 

 

 

 

De Soto, Hernando. The Mystery of Capitalism: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Falls Everywhere Else. Basic Books, 2000.

   De Soto brings to light the immense scale of underground economy in underdeveloped nations and how it can serve as an untapped source of wealth once the extralegal sector is integrated, i.d. once assets turn into capital with the underpinning of a standard representation system. 

   De Soto points out the prevalent conservatism of lawyers impeding the integration and how it is important for leaders to handpick the reform-minded few. To me, this seems to imply the failure of the political elites in developing nations to find the right talents to effect change. But politicians and lawyers in those nations are no slouch. Rather, it feels like there is some sort of force majeure yet to be identified that holds back the takeoff of such nations, however varying it may depending on the region.