Book 13: The First Tycoon

The First Tycoon: the Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

T. J. Stiles

Even though I've spent much of the past four years significantly immersed in 19th-century U.S. history, I realized upon picking up The First Tycoon that I knew very little about Cornelius Vanderbilt beyond a vague sense that he was one of the country's most successful robber barons. According to the pleasantly enlightening biographical note that T. J. Stiles appends to his meticulously researched biography of the transportation titan, this is partially due to the fact that Vanderbilt receives surprisingly little academic attention, especially relative to the class of magnates (the household names Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan come to mind) that followed in his wake. Despite the fact that Vanderbilt has seemingly become merely an historical footnote, Stiles effectively utilizes the facts of Vanderbilt's life to highlight the sweeping economic and social changes that his subject experienced and influenced throughout his lengthy tenure as a steamship and railroad executive.

Indeed, if there is a primary complaint to be made about the book, it is that Stiles focuses almost exclusively on Vanderbilt's extensive economic endeavors, often ignoring his personal life or interrupting otherwise compelling narratives of personal feuds, corporate takeovers, and civil wars (not just ours) with non-sequitur anecdotes. Though Stiles attempts to relate these brief notes into relevant points of the greater narrative (and makes it quite clear that there exists little evidence of the man's personal life and private relationships), they often seem a bit ham-fisted; there surely could have been a more effective way of integrating them into the larger portrait of Vanderbilt. Likewise, Stiles seems fond of dropping foreshadowing hints before brief and long breaks alike, making it sometimes difficult to follow the thread of a particular story or business relationship across several chapters. His adherence to chronology does, however, give the book crucial momentum despite the inherent difficulties Stiles faces in relating stories that are strikingly similar to one another and that rely heavily on complex financial maneuvers that are almost certainly foreign to the bulk of his readership. This momentum, along with the author's consistent focus on his subject's forceful personality, make the book a strikingly readable account of business history that rarely becomes boring even to the uninitiated (such as myself).

The book's economic approach to Vanderbilt's life, though obviously warranted, necessitates frequent explanations and asides regarding the rapidly changing economic and political context of his times. Stiles handles these admirably, and the book is as enlightening for its insights into the world of 19th-century social customs and financial systems as it is for its retellings of Vanderbilt's various professional achievements. He clearly had a general audience in mind while writing the book, yet he strikes the right balance between explaining the obvious and becoming mired in tedious (and unnecessary) details. Some of the intricacies involved in stock maneuvers continue to elude my understanding in spite of his best efforts, but given my personal history with attempts to understand the period's economic theory I'm not sure it's quite fair to blame Stiles for that; in fact, he should be lauded for his success in making some of this stuff actually make sense to my notoriously business-averse mind. Those familiar with the era's politics will recognize and appreciate the ways in which Jacksonian laissez faire radicalism gradually became more stringent Democratic conservatism over the course of Vanderbilt's considerably influential career, and Stiles includes plenty of relevant context for those approaching the era decades after their high school history classes.

All told, Stiles has put together a compelling academic study of a man and his contemporary context that is far from dry, despite relying on the intricate economics of business deals for many of its most potent plot points. Somehow, in his hands the story of Cornelius Vanderbilt is continually compelling, both a vivid portrait of the man and a reasonably nonpartisan exploration of the monumental economic, political, and social changes he saw- and significantly contributed to- throughout his lifetime. The First Tycoon is a well-written, unapologetically academic, and appealing history, representing an admirable (and largely successful) attempt to understand the seemingly inextricable history of both Cornelius Vanderbilt and the economic climate of the 19th-century United States.

Grade: A-

Book 10: Soccernomics

Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U. S., Japan, Australia, Turkey- and Even Iraq- Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport
Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

Well, with a title like that, the authors are certainly making quite a few promises, aren't they? First of all, there's the direct allusion to Freakonomics, and the book certainly lives up to its predecessor's legacy, promising to shake up the World As We Know It but ultimately offering some suggestions born of both common sense (don't put your club on the revolving manager carousel) and heavily massaged, selectively applied data. Though Soccernomics does fall prey to many of the same pitfalls as its namesake, however, it is a worthwhile and interesting read, if not consistently engaging or as promising as its title suggests. More frustratingly than the nod to Freakonomics, perhaps, is the promise that herein lie the secrets of future United States dominance of international soccer- a point that is touched upon in the book's concluding chapter, sure, and alluded to throughout, but which becomes almost an afterthought, an inexcusable oversight when its promise comprises 21(!) words of the book's title. This ending actually becomes laughably anticlimactic, and illustrates how the authors, including a far-too-disappointing Simon Kuper, fail to adequately navigate through their sometimes interesting data, often interesting anecdotes, and insights intriguing and silly alike. After explaining their idea of examining soccer through data, they turn to a particular case study, England, in a move cleverly designed to appeal to their core audience. Though this makes sense in a way, and illustrates several aspects of the game that can be studied through data analysis, the chapter contains several allusions to later segments and ultimately feels out of place, particularly as the remaining chapters focus on specific trends or other aspects of the game, such as club teams and international teams.

Worse still, the authors fall into another trap executed so elegantly by their inspiration, and seem to be driven by a desire to prove points rather than to look through their data and see the revelations. This type of book celebrates the counterintuitive, and while that's admirable and, in many ways, often accurate, some bold assertions aren't so bold after all. Is it truly revolutionary to presume that, as European know-how spreads throughout the world, once averse nations such as the United States will warm to soccer? Moreover, the authors base large swaths of their analysis on a self-serving circle of proof. When studying the relative success of different nations, they swear by a metric that takes population, income, and number of international games played- and then use it to prove that those three variables account for success. Why those three, particularly when problems, such as the fact that nations in a weaker federation such as, say, the AFC, play each other more often than the European giants or Brazil? Sure, the United States underachieves based on these factors, but data cannot explain everything. And yet, maddeningly, though the authors acknowledge this, they routinely undercut their data with subjective analysis, which is fine if you're basing your conclusions on the data but which does not induce much confidence when data is supposed to reign unquestionably supreme. Perhaps, then, what the book proves is that, though numerical analysis might help fans understand soccer more thoroughly and help clubs or countries perform more efficiently, the world cannot be understood solely through anecdote or data. This anticlimactic realization on the part of the reader, coupled with the authors' inept organization, ignorance of their book's own title, and repetition of certain points, makes Soccernomics disappointing, perhaps not surprisingly.

Grade: B-

Book 16: SuperFreakonomics

SuperFreakonomics
Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

The intrepid Levitt and Dubner return with this follow-up to their smash hit Freakonomics, which explored many counter-intuitive phenomena observed in the real world through the theoretical framework of economics, a premise that drives this sophomore effort. Unfortunately, Levitt and Dubner attack this intriguing idea with a ferocious sense of self, inserting themselves into every paragraph and almost shunting the actual material to the side as they gloat and provide smug asides that show just how wonderful, funny, and against the grain they run. One of the book's opening explorations, for example, actively condones drunk driving because drunk walking statistically causes more deaths (or seems to) and drunk drivers are highly unlikely to get caught. This may be true to the data (though some of their numbers are suspect, like equating the number of drunk miles driven with drunk miles walked; I suspect the two are very different numbers), but instead of exploring ways to fix this situation, the authors bask in their audacity. There are many points throughout the book where the gloating, self-aggrandizing tone becomes actually disgusting and it seems like Levitt and Dubner deliberately sought out controversial topics just so they could break the mold and undermine the dominant wisdom. I am not against this idea; in fact, I embrace open-minded thinking and novel approaches to problems, as well as being fascinated by psychology. It's just that Levitt and Dubner could be a bit more scientific in their presentation rather than trying so hard to produce forced humor that is rather juvenile and distracting.

If Levitt and Dubner want to be treated as hard-nosed scientists, they should perhaps introduce fewer snide remarks that, instead of proving how hilariously snarky they are, merely seem immature and designed to make readers see exactly how hilariously snarky they are. And though attribution and context is important, the chapter of the book that focuses on global warming essentially becomes an advertisement for a select group of scientists and their company. I've seen much more subtle ad copy, and this from two authors whose mission is to introduce scientific thinking into the mainstream. That is not to say that there isn't some intriguing science or interesting observations within; indeed, they pepper the book (sections about prostitutes in Chicago and on altruism are particularly good). SuperFreakonomics is, however, a book obsessed with itself, and some of the data seems at least slightly suspect, to say nothing of resulting observations. Unlike the scientists they claim to be and over their own self-deprecating comments in the book's introduction, Levitt and Dubner appear to have come to the book with an agenda. Sections on prostitution and altruism, as mentioned above, are worth seeking out and reading, but overall SuperFreakonomics reads like a long ego trip that isn't particularly effective and is quite unpleasant to read.

Grade: C

Book 37: The Social Life of Information

The Social Life of Information
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid

It's back to the nonfiction with this book, which is an outlook on the possible trajectories of information technology from the authors' starting point around the turn of the Millennium. It's strange to revisit this book a full eleven years after most of its examples have had the chance to play out, and though it isn't fair to judge the book simply by the authors' inability to accurately forsee the future, it is hilarious to note a few instances where they are hilariously wrong (my personal favorite is assuming that a start-up will never be able to capture a market again; hello, Google). It is not these forgivable failures that sink The Social Life of Information, however. Buried within its excessive verbosity and obsession with authors' employer are interesting ideas, sure, but it is too damn hard to find them in the rambling, often contradictory prose offered by Brown and Duguid. The authors are perhaps a bit too enthusiastic as they fill their pages with incomprehensible jargon and work on the underlying assumption that readers share a strong business background. Particularly egregious is a mention of 6D thinking well before the list of 6Ds, odd buzzwords that all begin with de- or dis- and which are completely obtuse and unexplained, popping up occasionally in subsequent chapters (despite the authors' insistence that the "essays" can be read in any order). I mean, what does "disintermediation" even mean? Instead of shoring up their argument by explaining how each D represents a trend, the authors leave the words uselessly hanging.

This type of assumptive writing is prevalent throughout the book, which teems with unexplained examples that seem unrelated to the text at large and which unexpectedly pop up later after being left hanging for far too long. Brown and Duguid indulge in technical talk that is, at best, self-indulgent and throw in bonus-point vocabulary words that detract from meaning and come across as flagrant showboating. Their inability to construct an academic argument also adds an air of self-importance; though there are several coherent points in the book, these are repeated as bite-sized tidbits and aren't connected to the data presented. Often, Brown and Duguid use the book as a platform to attack futurologists and predictions of the future, a tendency that is hilarious when they are wrong (which is often) and ironic when they devote twenty pages or so to describing a future of universities which hasn't come to pass yet and doesn't seem to be close. It's paradoxical that in their love of paradox-exposing and use of the word "paradoxical" they unwittingly create a paradox in their own book. Amidst all this bad writing, they make the same point time and again. The Social Life of Information argues, where arguments can be found, that technology can't be ripped from the social context of humanity; the way we use information is as important as how we use information. Brown and Duguid have come up with many interesting examples of this but can't seem to connect them with each other or with larger principles; it's up to the reader to connect the dots and to discard the 85-90% of the book that is useless statistics and almost-unreadable language. The Social Life of Information is an interesting attempt to contextualize technology, but only hardcore information buffs willing to withstand a battery of poor prose should bother with this incoherent list of sometimes interesting ideas.

Grade: C

Book 1: Freakonomics

Freakonomics
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Yes, yes, I'm alive and reading, if only just barely. I begin this year, my third blogging my books, with Freakonomics, and interesting anecdotal book that attempts to alter thinking about economics and the world in general. While it basically does accomplish this task, the whole idea of "Freakonomics" works much better in its popular blog format rather than in its original print incarnation. Because the book doesn't make an argument and is admittedly only a collection of interesting ideas and research, its scope is limited and it doesn't lend itself well to re-reading. The premise of Freakonomics is rather interesting, but the book itself becomes almost unbearable in parts with its self-aggrandizing sense of importance. Yes, rethinking the world in a very practical and sensible way is quite interesting and very well could change the world, but Freakonomics isn't an ideological savior or even a particularly novel approach- what it is is an economist's practicality mixed with an artist's curiosity and the down-to-Earth factual results that can emerge when mixing the two.

On this level, Freakonomics is wildly successful. The sections dispelling popular parenting myths were particularly interesting because they take our spoon-fed conventional wisdom and turn it right on its head, leading me to create my own thesis that if something is conventionally understood to be true, it stands a rather good chance of being just the opposite of what it appears to be. The accounts of different myths and hypothoses tested (though the book isn't devoted entirely to myth busting, it does its fair share) are compelling and fascinating and seem to be thoroughly researched. There are plenty of disclaimers and much pointed criticism of inaccurate data reports; though of course I cannot claim to test the claims made in this book, they were obviously constructed and tested through rigorous levels of skeptical thinking and rethinking.

On a more basic level, perhaps, the book is written fairly simply and doesn't overly condescend to those not familiar with economics. The book does, however, take a rather congratulatory stance on its headliner: each chapter begins with a glowing review of Levitt's work from the New York Times and the introduction is ridiculous at best. Though Freakonomics is not a run-of-the-mill dry economic treatise, it does work out especially well for Levitt and paints him and his theory in the best of lights, an approach that always needs to be treated with several large grains of salt, but at its core the book does seem to foster intelligent discussion and, above all, elaborate questioning of the familiar. Freakonomics is a worthwhile book, but definitely one to get from the library as its information is relatively straightforward. Even if you aren't initially intrigued by the book, a look at the blog will pique interest somehow and introduce liberal artsy people like me to the human side of mundane math.

Grade: A-