Cambodia's Curse, a Review

The author is no doubt correct to point out that, among many factors, the lack of the rule of law and uneducated Cambodians and their politicians are the curses to Cambodia’s development.  Are Cambodians resistant to change?  There...

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The Worldly Philosophers

A graduate student who could write such a good book is an exceptionally brilliant person. His novel style of writing manifested in this book keeps readers curious and allows readers to be back in the time of those economic thinkers.  Although...

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Hun Sen's Cambodia: review

The author discusses issues in this book in his journalistic professionalism, not in political or economic models. In most parts, he interviewed relevant persons, told stories and most importantly stuck to main points. Through...

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The Lucifer Effect: Review

Brain is the master of all evils and devils. Yet, we have understood it so little. How are human behaviors shaped, were human born good, can good people turn evil etc. remain unending questions. Among subjects in undergraduate level, psychology deals with this kind of issues and brain the most (unless your major is neuroscience). My encounter with two psychology classes in my under shaped my ways of thinking in a positive...

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Rich Dad, Poor Dad

I was curious about finance and surfed the web for the best book for laymen like me. The title came up but I did not dig into it. However, when I walked in different libraries in my graduate school of Waseda University, I frequently saw it in both Japanese and English versions, which means it is seemingly popular. So I decided to read it. I put it in my iPhone, printed out some pages and also borrow the English version from my...

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The Constitution of Liberty

The book as well as the author are well-known but not as one would expect, although the ideas have changed the world in a great extent. Most students of economics do not even know his name. Some professors do hear his name but never actually read his books. That is my experience while I studied in Japan as well as of today when I asked people around me about that... Of course, if you read only textbooks, you would probably never...

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Free to Choose

Prof. Mankiw of Harvard has written two worldly popular textbooks in economics: Principles of Economics and Macroeconomics. There are many universities and professors who use his textbooks in classrooms. In my university, Kobe University, his textbooks are popular for undergraduate and graduate levels. I enormously like his books, and that is where I got to know the book Free to Choose.    In his note on his further...

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Economics in One Lesson

I have no reservation to say that Economics in One Lesson is one of few books in economics that can explain economics in simplest ways for laymen and economists alike. Giant economists such as Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek were far from being able to do so. This is one of the reasons that I include it in my 5 must read books in economics. Clearly this book is an updated version of Bastiat’s That Which is...

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