(In French, I couldn't find an English translation of this book)

Voyage aux pays du coton. Petit précis de mondialisation,  [Journey to the Lands of Cotton. A Brief Manual of Globalisation] by Erik Orsenna, published by Fayard, Paris, 2006.

This is a fascinating book about globalization seen from the perspective of cotton. The author, a French journalists has travelled across the world in search of the cotton farmers and the cotton industry, aiming to explore how globalization has shaped the industry. He thus met cotton farmers in Mali, cotton lobbyists in Texas, genetic engineering experimenters in Brazil, traders in Egypt, Sock manufacturers in China and the last of the textile manufacturers in the Vogese region of France. He met interesting characters and has fascinating stories to tell - travel truly broadens the mind.

The facets from around the world offer no easy answer, except that any simple response to globalization is bound to be too simple (and likely to do more harm than good). The book makes for every entertaining read, though the facets are often too brief to really understand what is really going on, and how all those people who life is intrinsically linked to cotton interact with each other around the world.

For a TV interview with the author click here.

A Reason for Everything: Natural Selection and the English Imagination, by Marek Kohn, published by faber and faber 2005.

Everyone knows Charles Darwin's work on Evolution, yet scholarly thinking about evolution has evolved (sic!) considerably over the past century and half. Marek Kohn tells the story of scholarship into evolution in a very personal, even intimate perspective: He tells the life stories of eight scholars all based in England, who shaped how we think about evolution today. In early days, evolution - embedded in botany and zoology was mainly about collecting specimen in local forests and in exotic locations like the Amazon forests of Brazil or the Islands of Malaysia.

Other scholars pursued experiments in Mendel's tradition, while the most recent scholars - most notably John Maynard Smith - used formal mathematical models. In fact these mathematical models, partially inspired by game theory, has contributed back to game theory as it is used in economics. Finally, the probably best known contemporary scholar of evolution, Richard Dawkins, engaged with the broader public by developing ideas in popular book, and pointing to genes (rather than organisms, or populations) as the core unit of evolution. This book is a biography of eight remarkable man. While reading about their lives, and their eccentricities (they are all British), the reader learns about the evolution of this fascinating area of scholarship.

(in German, I couldn't find an English translation of the book)

In der Fremde: Ingenieure und Techniker auf interkultureller Entdeckungsreise in arabisch-islamische Ländern, in China und in Indien [In foreign Lands: Engineers and Technicians in Islamic countries, India and China], edited by Mona Spisak / Hansruedi Stalder, published by Haupt, Bern, 2007.

How do you prepare future expats for their stint abroad? There are so many things one ought to know, and so many anxieties before you go for the first time. Some people get totally exhausted by the expat experience, while other just can't get enough of it. Scholars have developed all kinds of concepts and scales supposed to help people prepare to work in other countries - but,  frankly, in practice they are of little use. Alstom, a Swiss engineering company, is dealing with this challenges very regularly: Their engineers are installing power plants all over the world, and they have to send people who grew up in stable peaceful Switzerland to remote corners of the world. To help them, they came up with an innovative approach: They paired expats with authors (young scholars or journalists), who made an interview and wrote up their personal story.

The result is a fascinating book of personal experiences of people working on the ground, mainly in major construction projects, and interacting with a huge diversity of local people. These expats stories and anecdotes provide a valuable complement to any more formal training in cross-cultural management; and an entertaining read for people who love travel stories.

A History of Denmark, by Knud J.V. Jespersen, published by Palgrave Macmillan 2004.

Why does Denmark has such a closely-knit, yet outward looking society? Why is agriculture to this day a backbone of the Danish economy? Why do Danes, who rarely attend church, has such huge problems accepting and integrating immigrants who are Muslim? The answers to these sorts of questions are grounded in culture, which evolved throughout its history. Reading (good) history provides a grounding to understand contemporary society.

Knud Jespersen's History of Denmark provides such insights. Covering five hundred years, he provides the long lines of social, cultural and economic development. While providing detailed facts, the books main contribution is in explaining and interpreting such long connections that shape Danish society to this day. As a traditionally inward looking, very homogenous and highly cooperative society - a sort of nationwide village community - Danes find it difficult to face the forces of globalization (immigration, EU-membership, international competition). This books goes a long way to explain why.  

Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour, by Kate Fox, published by Hooder & Stoughton in 2004.

This is an anthropologist's summary of her lifetime of investigating her own people. It is very entertaining indeed, at least if you know a little about English culture, and have lived here for a while. You also have to understand British humor with its mix of self-depreciation and subtle understatement; the author does not want her observations to be taken too seriously. The book goes in depth and some passages are quite academic as the author is searching for what it means to be "English". Thus, it is probably not suitable as airplane reading for first time visitors - unless you are a fellow anthropologist. However, the book is well known amongst may expat friends and colleagues - more so that among the native for whom the book was originally intended.

The authors favorite topic is English pub culture - I am sure she enjoyed the field research. She describes the unwritten rules of behaviour, on buying rounds, communicating with barmen, giving tips or not, male bonding etc. According to her research, whoever offers to buy the first round usually does not end up paying more than others - so remember that when you next meet me in a pub :-). A theme throughout is, probably unavoidably, class. I started noting subtleties of behaviour of my colleagues that I had previously been blissfully unaware of. But with a regular dose of English humor, fair play and patient queuing, life if not too bad in England, even in a rainy summer.

Taipei People, by Pai Hsien-yung, published in English by Chinese University Press, Hong Kong in 2000. (Chinese original 1971)

Short stories of a generation of people in Taipei, who had come over from the mainland at the end of the civil war, and grown old in a rapidly changing city. The stories paint images of people who lived in difficult times, suffered their fate, and make ends meets as a new generation grows up without those mainland memories. This collection is a master piece of Chinese story telling.

(In Danish, I am not aware of an English version of this book)

Business history can sometimes be as exciting to read as a crime novel. This book tells story of Mærsk McMinney Möller, the world's largest container shipping line. Established in 1904 by his father A.P. Möller, the company now known as A.P.Möller - Mærsk has become a formidable player in the global shipping industry, and a key player in Danish industry - and politics. Mærsk and his father are admired for their spectacular business acumen, making Danes proud.

Yet, with a company of such size and political weight, it is hardly a surprise that it also attracted controversy: from historical disputes over activities during the German occupation, to controversial oil concessions in the North Sea, tax negotiations with Danish prime ministers to price fixing convictions by the European competition authorities. The journalists authoring this book tell the story of the ups and downs of the company and it undisputed leader. Mærsk retired from the board aged 90 in 2003, and since then company became a little more like other companies: with a boardroom coup that brought in Carlsberg's CEO Niels Smedegaard Andersen as new CEO in November 2007.

For many communities, history is a pivotal element of defining who they are, and what they stand for. National leaders, especially authoritarian ones, thus have a tendency to try and control how their own nations history is to be interpreted; yet history is always subject to interpretation and no longer do winners alone determine how history is written. This may have been accepted across Europe by the end of the 20th century, but in many parts of Asia the interpretation of history can still create huge controversies. In few places is this more true than in Taiwan, which was first put in the map of China in the the early Qing period, in 1683, and was gradually colonized until it became a province in 1887, only to come under Japanese control in 1895.

Emma Teng provides an unconventional yet insightful perspective on the gradual evolution of Taiwan to become part of China: She reviews and interprets the writings of travelers to Taiwan throughout the Qing period, tracing the gradually changing representation of the land and in particular its local inhabitants. In the early years, Taiwan was see as strange and distant, in large part inaccessible due to hostile natives and mountainous territory outside the coastal areas under Chinese control. In late Qing, that control had expanded, and natives were clearly distinguished between civilized ones adapted to Chinese society and the wild ones who were driven back into the mountains. In the 1870s, when the Chinese pushed towards control of the entire Island, the non-integrated natives were perceived as backward and a threat to imperial power. Ex post, after 1895, Taiwan soon was presented as an integral part of China. Vivid descriptions of life of the locals in the original texts - don't miss the excerpts of Yu Yonghe's travel account of 1697 in the appendix - are interpreted in the context of scholarly discourses, which however include a fair bit a repetition and some rather abstract deliberations.

I picked this book up at the airport, and as I was traveling through the sky, it brought back memories of bicycle holidays from my youth when we cycled across Europe. Anne Mustoe starts her journey in Skagen at the top of Denmark - the final stop for one of my last major cycle tours several years ago. She writes about her impressions about the countryside she is passing through and the people she is meeting. I found the book stimulating when she talks about areas I have visited myself as it triggered many fond memories. It is at it best when she is describing in a very immediate style the peoples and cultures she encounters during her journeys.

In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land that Disappeared, by Christopher Robbins, published by Profile Books, London, 2007.

Few places in the world are left to arise the sensation of the exotic, unknown world that even world travelling jet-setters have not been to. Kazakhstan is such a place - not withstanding the fact that it is huge, sitting right in the middle of the Eurasian continent separating Russia and China. Christopher Robbins discovered it accidentally, and made it his mission of understand the young nation with an ancient history. He discovered a thriving nation, doing well of oil without been spoilt by its riches, with a huge land from the disappearing Aral lake, through thousands of mile of steppe to the mountains of Tien Shan on the border to China. He travels into history, recounting the stories of ancient explorers and the tales of the survivors of the Gulag. He grew close to president Nazarbayev, a man greatly appreciated by his own people, though seen with suspicion for afar. Roberts provides multiple perspectives on the man who has been leading the country for nearly two decades, and let's him talk himself.

Kazakhstan is a rare tales of success arising from what used to be the Soviet Union. The mood of the book oscillates between entertaining (especially when reporting travels), depressive (when discussing the Gulag), and philosophical (especially with respect to contemporary politics). Most of all, its people become alive. It is worthwhile reading not only for those seeking an exotic unknown world. 

Tai-Pan and Shogun, both by James Clavell, originally published by Athenum, New York in 1957.

These two novels fascinated me when I was still a teenager, and stimulated my interest in the East, most notably Japan (Shogun) and Hong Kong (Tai-Pan).  James Clavell has a unique ability to tell stories taking place in distant locations, with intricate knowledge of historical developments and local culture. Reading Tai-Pan again recently, was amazed about the subtleties of his description of cross-cultural interactions between colonial English and local Chinese. Recently, a movie brought the story to the big screen; it's not bad, but it does not capture the richness of the original novel.

Everyone living in a small town in England, especially those who have traveled afar, must sometimes feel an irresistible urge to put to paper the vast number of grumbles they hold against the shortcoming of town and country, and the local infrastructure in particular. Two hundred years ago, a gentleman by the name of John Man put pen to paper and wrote down all the little incidents that annoyed him in the town of Reading, dressing them up as letters to a friend supposedly in London, and publishing them in a smallish book. His fellow townsmen were not impressed, yet, for today's readers, Man's grumbling musings provide wonderful insights in the life of ordinary people in an ordinary town in time gone by, while the rich prose in the style of the time provides an amusing read. Yet, short sentences are in short supply. 

Theodore Storm is a 19th century novelist who lived in the northernmost part of Germany, where the interplay of land and ocean determines the daily lives of the people. His most famous piece, the "Schimmelreiter" (roughly translating as "rider on a white horse", but the English version is titled "The Dykemaster") had been on our curriculum in high school, and I remember our high school class going to the movies together to see a recent release. As I was now reading this and other stories again, following the details of local people in this special area, I noted how special the culture is. In fact I was wondering if people South of Hamburg would really know to appreciate these novels. Culture used to be much more local than today, shaped by local geography - and by the rough seas that would every so often in a stormy night flood the land.

When I moved to Reading, I thought I ought to know a little bit about the town's history, and thus turned to this little book obtained in the local tourist office. Reading is not exactly on the tourist trail but usually known as one of England's less distinctive commuter towns outside London. Yet, it has a rich history. Reading Abbey once ruled the land - until it fell out with the King, and Abbot was publicly executed in 1539. All that remains are a few ruins, a lovely park and a few minor building - of which the Hospitium became in 1892 the first home of what later became the University of Reading. In the 19th century, local businesses flourished after the construction of the railways, especially Huntley and Palmer, and Sutton Seeds - yet they have long been acquired by bigger companies. Today's local industry is dominated by the likes of Oracle and Microsoft serving UK markets from their base in the Thames Valley.

As a graduate student in the early 1990s, development economics was one of my specializations, yet I have moved into other areas since. Then we used Gerald Meier's textbook; his new book provided me an update of the field. 

The book traces the development of development economics as an academic discipline from its roots in 'colonial economics' before 1950 to the present time. It ties the broad debates together, and illuminates the close dialog between scholars, the key debates in policy forums, and the policies of national governments, aid organizations, and multilateral organizations. For me, the main insights relate to understanding the bigger issues and debates that link many individual research papers together. This is not a beginners' book, but it should be mandatory reading for graduate students and policy makers in the field of economic development.