How We Got Here

May 23, 2005
This pasted-together romp through 300-odd years of technological advancement and financial development reads as it is billed: material cut from the manuscript of Kessler's 2004 book, Running Money
. Per the brief foreword, Kessler's aim is to provide a list of "five simple creeds" that have helped him "explain the explainable" and "peer into the fog of the future": lower prices drive wealth; intelligence moves to the edge of the network; horizontal beats vertical; capital sloshes around seeking its highest return; and the military drives commerce and vice versa. His proof is delivered in a whirlwind tour of the industrial and digital revolutions. The first half of the book is a game of hopscotch through the Industrial Revolution and the evolution of early capital markets. The second half tells the story of the computer era and the growth of today's capital markets. Sandwiched between the two is an oddly abbreviated two-chapter section, 10 pages in all, that covers the development of the telegraph, telephone and power generation. Kessler returns to his "simple creeds" here and there, but the only real unifying force is hokey, techy wisecracks. The result is rehashed history often bewilderingly unconnected in theme and chronology, though many individual anecdotes are well told.

June 15, 2005
Kessler ("Running Money: Hedge Fund Honchos, Monster Markets and My Hunt for the Big Score"), a journalist, former hedge fund manager, Wall Street analyst, venture capitalist, and chip designer, presents a fast-paced, albeit condensed, history that reaches back to the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, breezes through the development of early capital markets and the rise of communications, and connects it all to the explosion of the computer age and the growth of modern capitalism. In offering this brief history of technological change and its ramifications, Kessler seeks to demonstrate the five simple creeds he says he has learned over time: lower prices drive wealth, intelligence moves out to the edge of the network, horizontal beats vertical, capital sloshes around seeking its highest return, and the military drives commerce and vice versa. He writes in a hip style that slings the slang and hits the high points of this fascinating story, providing a more in-depth analysis of how today's modern information age evolved than is found in James Burke's "Connections". Recommended for all public libraries and academic libraries supporting business, engineering, and computer science curricula. -Dale Farris, Groves, TX

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