Review: Notes On Resistance by Noam Chomsky

Notes on Resistance

I love reading Noam Chomsky till he writes on Kashmir.

He is a voice one must hear, though some, especially the likes of politicians, CIA, NSA etc., will dismiss his views as utopian. Whether his views are idealistic or not, one thing is for sure that he does not mince words when exposing the brutality of imperialism and authoritarianism, espcially American one. This book has been stitched together from a series of interviews he gave on various topics.

It is no wonder that Chomsky never was given too much attention in the mainstream media, unless during thos rare times when he was talking about linguistics.

The book is devoid of any jargons or over the top theories, and brings forth so many diversified examples of imperialism and power-grab that the first time reader of Chomsky might wonder if all of this is actually true (I am not a first time reader of his). But the added dimension is that the reader would be even in more disarray because he/she never read about it in history books. Because history books are not supposed to tell you how Iran’s democratic government was overthrown by U.S. and Britain due to their concerns of oil being nationalized. That India’s armed forces have often resorted to unspeakable violence when dealing terrorism in Kashmir (I told you, I hate Chomsky). However, in cases like Kashmir or Palestine, what Chomsky fails to realize is that just one act of misdirected violence by the forces would result in endless criticism. Whereas the infinite steadfastness of the forces to resist attacking the stone-throwers is never praised. There is no black and white in such cases. Neither side is perfect or imperfect. Grey zone is a reality of life, especially in conflict zones. But still reading Chomsky is a must for most of his critiques are valid and pointed.

However, most of Chomsky’s writings or views do suffer from what is suffered by Roy. There is no solution presented by Chomsky. It is naive to believe that only democracy is the best way to rule over a country. And naive to believe that only American way of democray is the ‘right way’ (Chomsky doesn’t believe this by the way). Wish his critique lead to suggestions and possible solutions too.

A must read book by all means.

Review: After Steve by Tripp Mickle

After Steve

I have not read any books yet on Apple or on Steve Jobs. Back in 2007, I had come across the book by Wozniak and it was quite a hit. But I never ended up reading it. I have used many Apple products and most of them are quite good and well made. Their design and aesthetics is what surely stands out. And the bulk of that credit goes to Jonathan Ive. He had successfuly delivered breakaway products like iMacs, iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watch amongst others.

The book is well written and chronicles how, after Steve Jobs death in 2011, Tim Cook took over as the CEO and slowly the creative soul of the organization died and got taken over by people focused on finance, accounting, efficiency, and operations, rather than design, creativity, and bringing iconoclast products.

With Jobs gone, Ive fought it out for a long time, but finally exited Apple and found his own design firm.

I would highly recommend this book for it details many internal power struggles within Apple one may not have heard of. Also the author has painstakingly given a detailed background of the main characters, Ive, Cook and few others, and built up a well woven narrative. But hasn’t made it so detailed that it becomes boring. Those backgrounds were necessary to understand why those power clashes were taking place in the first place: because each person had a different rooting and a mindset to look at things.

I would suggest this book to not only Apple fans but also to business students because one gets to know how success is not a result of just hard work, but also of support, luck, and fighting it out. It goes without saying that since so many years, Apple’s phones have been launched with minimal changes and negligent upgrades. There was something magical about Ive and his design process which made the products irresistable. Though, one big learning for everyone from this book surely is: never buy the latest launched product, because it is always launched with missing features, manufacturing deadlines, and unhappy teams, and software bugs.

A must read in all ways!

Review: An Incomplete Life by Vijaypat Singhania

An Incomplete Life

My only reason for buying this book was the hype created around Mr Singhania writing about how he was throw out of his own house by his son Gautam Singhania, after the former had signed over everything to the latter. I was waiting for those juicy details which never came. I wanted a sneak peek into the family feuds of billionaires. I got very little of it through this book.

The Singhanias have been an enterprising lot and have made themselves rich and famous since more than half a century. Raymond brand is one fo the strongest and well known brands of India. They have many other business interests as well.

Mr Singhania recalls his childhood and growing up years in the first few chapters, and how the large extended family stuck together, more or less, through tough times which is quite touching for nowadays families have shrunk in size. He also recalls his various affairs he had over the years with various women while still being married to his wife. What a hypocrite!

However his writing is most passionate when he writes about his flying adventures and breaking three world records. He definitely is a braveheart! He does gives few tips in the end on how not to give away everything to children for one may end up on the streets without a penny in pocket.

This book turned out more of a personal story rather than a business book.

Review: Pandeymonium by Piyush Pandey

Pandeymonium

I did not know before reading this book that Piyush Pandey’s family is so accomplished in various creative fields! His sister Ila Arun, his brother Prasoon Pandey and many other siblings with each having his/her strength.

I picked up this book hoping to get a more nuanced, yet detailed, look into the mindset of an advertiser. I had absolutely no interest in reading about the personal life of Piyush. But I guess the dogma of formats is such that you ought to put in what nobody is really interested in. This book has been quite a disappointment. I was hoping Piyush will write about some methods to reign in the madness that is advertising. But there is none to be had in this book. He only writes about how feeling with the heart is the best way to write lines and be a copywriter.

The book is not all waste though. He does give many examples where different brands were bold enough to not have traditional settings for their products in the ads and yet the campaigns were successful. He talks of countless powerful ads he has worked on, not just for private firms but also for the government at various levels.

He is a brilliant ad maker. Wish he has sprinkled some of it within the pages.

Review: Permanent Record by Edward Snowden

Permanent Record

I was quite surprised that Edward Snowden wrote this book. Because he had categorically stated, when he had exposed spying by American agencies like NSA, CIA etc., that he wanted the focus on the various programs of surveillance and spying and not on him. He had purposefully kept himself out of spotlight by giving very few interviews. The writing of this book may have been motivated by financial reasons because Snowden’s assets had been frozen by the US authorities.

Snowden is not only intelligent but also courageous. He exposed the evil ways in which NSA and the likes went unhindered in their assault on freedom of regular citizens like you and I.

This book provides details of Snowden growing up and being a computer geek right childhood due to his dad. And then he decides not to continue his education beyond high school. However he did get a job as a security guard and due to lax intake requirements back then and the overwhelming open positions, he was taken in later in a technical position. Snowden exposes not only the various different programs used by the government to spy, but also how embassies worldwide have become only spots for surveillance and nothing more. He writes how he went to Switzerland and Japan to strengthen the data collection practices. He also is unabashedly critical of the main stream media (not as much as Greenwald though).

Towards the end, Snowden recounts his escape from Hong Kong and how, while at Moscow airport, is interrogated by the Russian agents and asked to cooperate with them so they could take care of him. Ultimately he refused and stayed there for many months. Finally, because he was attracting too much attention at the airport, he was given permit to exit the Moscow airport. He has lived in Russia since then.

‘Permanent Record’ is a must read book. It should be made mandatory in schools and colleges and I wish it becomes a manifesto of sorts for our freedom and tyranny of governments and technology.

Review: The Divider by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser

The Divider

It has become fashionable to criticize Trump and get away with it. Most of the book covers about Trump (and Putin and Xi / China) have a blazing red or blood red cover. This one, for a change, has a more classy white with a sliver of black. This book is hefty, and will take a good amount of time for one to cover, because it is so detailed as to literally have statements in double-quotes on almost every page.

When Trump won in 2016, I was quite happy and still sort of support him because he was an outsider in the sense of being a non-politician. Politicians have milked the system for too long for their own benefits, and hence an outsider, an entrepreneur at that, was a good thing. Of course Trump has an abrasive personality and he did not tone it down when he became the most powerful man on earth. I first saw Trump in the Apprentice show back in 2000s. I loved his style and his signature line “you are fired”. I remember reading in New Yorker in 2015 how paid actors were asked to appear at a Trump rally and the author was sort of happy that they (or whoever) had exposed it. Am sure New Yorker was stunned at the election results.

The book covers the entire period of Trump in White House and does manage to show that there was lot of infighting and chaos behind the scenes. To top it, Trump’s habit of tweeting to the world and then his team getting to know of his decision did not help one bit. But he surely did take lot of strong decisions and rankled up the leftist ecosystem who had led the country astray with their stupid policies. The most powerful nation cannot stop illegal immigrants from crossing over the border? Trump promised the wall, but of course could not complete it because of obvious lack of support in the House.

However, the focus of this book and its authors (they wrote for NYT itself should be a clear indicator) is to show that Trump and his White House never did even one thing correctly. No wonder I don’t take these kinds of books too seriously lest they cloud my thinking. Obama and his administration lied about how Osama bin Laden was killed and then even supplanted their fake theory in Zero Dark Thirty. Whereas Trump got Baghdadi and Soleimani killed, yet never got any credit in NYT or WaPo. Am not getting into the merits or demerits of killing Soleimani, but just bringing forth the point that when you read only NYT and WaPo, you will never read one thing positive about Trump or Republicans. That Trump ordered the pull out from Afghanistan did not merit praise, that he did not start any new military operations anywhere did not merit praise, that he cornered China did not merit praise, that he did as best as could to combat Covid pandemic and the economic fallout did not merit praise.

So with that in mind, you should definitely read this book for understanding how Trump operated and his antics upset many leaders like Merkel and Trudeau.