What Have I Read of Late

  Titan: The Life of John D Rockefeller, Sr by Ron Chernow John D Rockefeller's life was story of two halves connected by one thread: his religious beliefs. In the first half, brought up by his strong willed mother in absence of his bigamist gallivanting father, drilled in the values of thrift, self-reliance, hard work, and unflagging enterprise of his Baptist faith. His intelligence and ambition coincided with industrial blossoming of a continent sized country. He picked up one strand of the budding oil industry, started the age of kerosene, and by the time he exited, had brought in the gasoline age of automobiles. It was this phase of his life which demonstrated his nerves of steel in crushing competition through means fair and foul and created a company which became a byword of monopoly. His creation, Standard Oil controlled over 85% of refining, 90% of retail oil, and 30% of crude oil market for decades. The fact that he accomplished all this in an era of unfettered competition...

  Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk Read: November 2021 This book concerns itself with calculation of risk. It begins with the historical roots of measurement of risk and wonders how come ancient civilizations with advanced mathematics could not take the logical step of calculating probabilities . How come Greeks who were very good with geometry, or Hindus who were excellent at arithmetic, or particularly, later on Arabs, who practically invented algebra, could not go a step ahead and come up with theory of probability. Why this seemingly simple step had to wait for hundreds of years to start its journey in Europe? According to the author, the reason lies in the fact that all ancient societies were fatalistic. The idea of risk management emerges only when people believe that they are free agents to some extent. Once the concept of free agency took root in the renaissance era Europe, a new branch of mathematics in probability was quick to spring out. Of course, the jour...