After finishing A Pair of Blue Eyes, I read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, which I thoroughly enjoyed. First published in 1954, Fahrenheit 451 predicts a bleak future in which firemen start fires instead of putting them out, where books are banned, mechanical hounds track down criminals and where the walls of the "living room" are large television screens. Guy Montag is a fireman who becomes disillusioned by the state of things, and rebels. A fantastic book.
In Melbourne I bought a copy of The Commanding Heights – the battle for the world economy, which I’ve since begun to read. I didn’t get to see many episodes of the PBS series on SBS, so I bought the book instead. It documents the history of the world economy and presents the reasons why the economy is the way it is today; i.e. why capitalism gained the ascendancy over communism, and why the "commanding heights" (those industries – such as oil, mining and the utilities – which are critical to the economic health of a nation) have been relinquished by governments and swept up by the market. It starts out in the aftermath of World War II, where it highlights the key people and the important decisions that led to the immediate revival of the European economy. I’ve not read any further than this, but so far it has been written with clarity and purpose; even at this early stage in the book it’s possible to see the general direction in which the book is headed. The authors, Daniel Yergin (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Prize) and Joseph Stanislaw, write in a style that maintains the reader’s interest when it would have been all too easy to present the material in a much drier fashion. I get the feeling the authors are probably in favour of completely open markets, so it’s unlikely I’ll agree with everything that’s said, but it ought to be a good read anyway.
