5 comments about The Monk and the Riddle : The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur.

1. You can't be happy in life, being an entrepreneur, unless you find a way to find meaning into you business. Venture Capital, post "the bust", is very hard to come by; finding meaning in your business will be a key component in providing you with the drive necessary to overcome the many obstacles inherent with owning your own business. VC's know this and want to see it when your giving your spiel before they fork over the cash. There you go; save your money. Define it and use it as your central drive in life and business. I was a little duped into buying the book. Babson College requires it for one of their entrepreneurship classes. What's with professors making you buy books that tell you what they (the professors) can tell you in just one paragraph?



2. After reading 4- hour work week by Tim Ferris, I am a big fan of NOT living the Deferred Life Plan. Tim recommends this book so I read it in a few hours. Other critics like to say negative things about what the book wasn't, but I am going to tell you about what it was.
   
   It was a little slow in the middle due to all the story telling about the his life and experiences intermingled with a few characters he was currently dealing with.
   
   It was enlightening on how the VC business works and what one goes through when deciding on who to invest in. My favorite quote in the middle was that Randy believes in the "Romance not the Finance." The bottom line has to be more about something than just making $!
   
   But most of all it hits home for so many people who are doing what they have to do now, so they can do what they want to do later. Chapter 9: The Gamble is where it gets good. I found the words he uses to describe the differences of business risks and personal risks to be exactly where I am in life (28 with a great job that I could continue to make $, but have to compromise my creativity, work with people I don't respect, working for a company who's core values are different than mine, and doing something I don't care about). Or seek out that other career that is not so certain but is my passion and I could see myself doing it for life.
   
   Thanks Tim and Randy for the words. I am a Whole Lifer Now!
   
   RC



3. Liked the author, enjoyed the insight into the world of venture capitalism but this book could have been an article in a magazine. It seemed to me like a long walk for a short pay-off. I get the point but felt like the author was purposely stringing you along for some bigger pay-off that did not happen.



4. Randy did a great job of taking the readers through a seris of conversations that first started with Randy and Lenny than later to introduce Allison. Looking beyond the business venture and the excitement of starting a company, the few imporant points that caused me to refoucus were-What really excites me enough to want to do it for the "rest of my life" and Create YOUR onw meaning of success not what someone elses meaning of success.
   
   I also like Randy's thoughts about defering life so you can chase a pot of gold IS NOT the answer. If you're going to work hard you may as well work hard doing something you love and that something should make a difference in the lives of others or IMO, it's not worth doing. That was a wake up call for me.
   
   I am all about building wealth but I had to get my priorities straight as it relates to the path I was talking to get there! I was Lenny in the flesh. Thanks Randy, I appriate the book!



5. I read this last Saturday in one fell swoop and ended up with a very 'eh' feeling about it. On one hand, it's an interesting insight into his years as a CFO and CEO of various companies and the big lessons he learned, but on the other it's wrapped around a questionably authentic story about a stereotypical sales guy trying to get VC money. It ends up feeling about as authentic as Rich Dad, Poor Dad, that is to say, not at all. The biggest take away is 'do what you're passionate about', but there, I already said it, no need to read the book. His anecdotes about the early lives of the tech startup's he's been involved with were interesting, but not really enlightening. If I'm going to start a startup, I'm not going to be spinning off of Apple or bowing down to the VC gods of Sand Hill Road, and I doubt many people who read this book will.
   
   If you're looking for something interesting on how to balance your life and work, this isn't it. The title is completely inappropriate, aside from his message about doing what you're passionate about. Go read the Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris instead (The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich), it has a lot more to say about creating life value.
   
   This book would have been a lot more interesting if he'd cut the 3/4's about his daily routine and the story of [...], and instead focused more on how he went about bicycling around Burma or what have you.

No comments about Legacy: Cecil Rhodes, the Rhodes Trust and Rhodes Scholarships.

5 comments about The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and The Birth of Public Relations.

1. I enjoyed this book immensely. Tye chronicles Bernay's life and times well. Bernay's is presented as a genius and a demon and the facts support that he was both! If you disagree, read this book; it reveals how there are no real heroes, just good/bad/indifferent PR!



2. Larry Tye takes on a subject that few journalists would regard of savory: the biography of a PR man. One might dismiss PR people as not meriting attention or even toleration. But Tye walks a fine line here because the life of Eddie Bernays has some tension and complexity, and the book makes that clear. He is a worthwhile character study, not just for people in the communications industry, but also those in business more generally, politics, or interested in consumer and opinion issues. As Freud's nephew, Bernays carried around more heritage than most, and how he shoulders that burden creates interest. Bernays also placed himself at the forefront of an industry's development, and that creates another set of issues. The book is fraught with the same conflict that many deal with in communications: are they adding egocentric bias to information, or warping it for vested powers? Lastly, Bernays had a role in helping leaders develop their visibility, but does he stand as a peer at their shoulders? Tye does a great job at making us reflect on these issues in this highly readable book.



3. The book is entertaining in parts and provides interesting information to someone who has no prior knowledge on Bernays. But considering the impact Bernay's ideas & work made on PR and spin and consequently the American way of life, I found the writing style to be rather flippant; and the book, as a whole, skimpy. From the research material available and the interviews which he had conducted, Tye could have written a more substantial if not a scholarly piece, irrespective of his sentiments for Bernays the person. Perhaps, that was not his intention. However, Tye did make a bold claim with his title, and I naturally expected more from his book.



4. Bernays is generally acknowledged as the Father of PR. But, is he also the Father of Spin?

   Tye writes a fascinating biography of this key communications individual, filled with the key episodes that earned Bernays his moniker. From getting women to smoke to getting people to eat bacon, Bernays always seemed to figure out a way.

   But, Tye focuses heavily on these episodes and gives short shift to the implictions and consequences of Bernays's actions beyond fattening the bottom line. While it is true Bernays could not have fully appreciated all the consequences, his relentless drive to serve his clients reveals a man who forgot that public relations means being the conduit between the public and the client, not being another salesman, no matter how clever.

   If you're interested in seeing the modern fruition of Bernays's tactics, then I suggest Michael Levine's Guerilla PR: Wired, which updates Bernays's ideas into the digital age.

   Overall, this book is well-worth reading if you're interested in a man's actions. But, if you're interested in seeing how a man's actions can affect the world, then you might be better off with another book.




5. Larry Tye attempts an ambitious view of Edward Bernays but falls short. While his stories are entertaining he fails to draw a connection between his ideas and the results. Frankly, I found Michael Levine's Guerilla PR Wired to be a much better and useful read.

5 comments about The Secret of Their Success: Interviews with Legends & Luminaries.

1. The secret to Burt's success is in his ability to crisply edit his interviews and never drop a grain of his subject's wit & wisdom.
   
   The "secret" that Burt has revealed with his interviews, is that there is no secret to success. Rather, it is always hard work and persistence to stay prepared for the many "lucky" opportunities that will present themselves in our lifetime.
   
   If I were still teaching, I would surely assign this book to my students.



2. I am deeply impressed with Burt Prelutsky's collection of interviews. Roger L. Simon and David Horowitz are among my favorite bloggers fighting against Islamic nihilism. I visit their blogs on a daily basis. Michael Medved's radio talk show is fantastic. Alas, it is impossible to cite all of the interviewees in a short review. The Gene Kelly one, however, particularly caught my attention. He explains how "The studios always took credit for making stars, but they never did." I never before realized that the great dancer was also highly intelligent.
   
   One cannot go wrong if they purchase a copy of this book. Many of the most interesting and accomplished people of the last fifty years will reveal their innermost thoughts. If nothing else, these interviews with Mr. Prelutsky occurred during their mature years. They are therefore perhaps less reluctant to go into details best left untouched a few decades earlier. Yes, The Secret of Success is a sure winner. I whole-heartedly recommend it.



3. Burt Prelutsky is the rare interviewer who listens to his subjects. You can see this in his follow-up questions. He's actually interested in his subjects, and his interest is infectious. Some of the names are classic movie stars, and their answers add to their canon.
   
   You can dip into this book at any point, and skip around as you please. The answers won't appeal to the "get-rich-quick" crowd, but those of us who are interested in common-sense real-life advice from achievers will feast on this book.



4. Captivating! A unique incite into the lives of real celebrities, whose gifts to society are immeasurable. Thanks for the memories!



5. I have been a Burt Prelutsky fan from the very first moment I discovered his erstwhile column in the Los Angeles Times. How I miss it.
   His humor and clarity resound. He is a political writer to be reckoned with. There is no one like him. He will always impart wisdom, but never at the expense of his delicious humor.

5 comments about Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Co-founder.

1. This book was recommended to me, and I am glad I took the recommendation. Kenny Moore, who wrote the screenplay for Without Limits, one of the two Prefontaine movies, does it again. One cautionary note: once you pick this book up be prepared to read for long periods of time without wanting to put it down.



2. Bill Bowerman lived an extraordinary life by any standards. He was a top college track coach who won four national NCAA track titles, the Olympic track coach during the fateful Munich Olympics, a decorated officer in the mountain/ski battalion during WWII, a co-founder of Nike, and with his millions from Nike, a generous philanthroper.
   
   Bowerman seemed destined to live a life the generated great fascinating stories. Examples: He was coach to the stormy and supremely talented Steve Prefontaine. He (Bowerman) took on the American Athletic Union and its hypocritical stand on amateurism. He was in love with a woman who love him when he was a quarterback for the University of Oregon at the same time that she also loved the quarterback for the University of Southern California--a man who eventually become president of Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. (The woman decided to marry the winner of the UO-USC football game! I won't tell you how that came out.)
   
   As a result, this book is amazingly enjoyable at multiple levels. The stories are fascinating in their own right, but especially because Bowerman's life had as its backdrop some of the most amazing events in American history: the settling of Oregon, the Olympic movement, the running explosion that helped Nike become a multi-billion-dollar company, World War II, Viet Nam, and unrest among black athletes. The stories are skillfully written by Sports Illustrated writer and Olympic runner Kenny Moore, whom Bowerman coached. The book is also a story about character, integrity, and the winning spirit.
   
   Bowerman and the Men of Oregon is more interesting and exciting than fiction. It's a must read for all athletes, especially runners, and it's a great read for everyone else. I highly recommend it.



3. This is THE book for anyone who ever ran ladders or repeat quarters (if you don't know what that means, you're still going to enjoy the story).
   
   Had the opportunity to get my copy signed by Kenny recently. I told him that nearly lost my composure when I read the intro; if I would've had someone to tell me to slow down during training, I wouldn't have burned out at age 17.
   
   I was bummed that he didn't include the picture of himself and Frank Shorter after the '72 Olympic Marathon; that shot has to win the award for best athletic facial hair by a duo.
   
   The stories are woven together so masterfully, and it's hard to believe that the book covers a full century in time.
   
   In the acknowledgements, Kenny's small note to the runners of Oregon really speaks volumes; namely, he apologizes for compressing and diluting their stories in order to fit them into the book. Anyone who has lived the life will surely understand the significance of that statement.
   
   "Bowerman" is a collector's piece.



4. Being a native Oregonian, I loooved reading about the Bowerman family history. As a former runner, I enjoyed reading about the races. The book is very detailed and thorough. It's very well done. Enjoy!



5. I "raced" through this book and now plan to re-read in a more "paced" manner. I had read the excerpt printed in Runner's World magazine (Rodale publishes the magazine and also is the book's publisher) and looked forward to the book with high interest.
   
   I very much enjoyed getting to know much more about Bowerman than I had previously. He was a multi-talented, caring (if somewhat imperfect) individual to whom all of us recreational runners owe a huge debt of gratitude.
   
   I was surprised by the sections on Prefontaine, since Mr. Moore was co-author of the script for the movie "Without Limits". The movie painted a slightly darker picture of Pre than does the book. I was thrilled to hear of Pre's charitable interests and his work in bringing the Norwegians to Oregon.
   
   Like other reviewers, I found some of the track info a bit technical for me, but enjoyed it. Also, I was a bit confused by some of the early Bowerman family chapters.
   
   I cannot recommend this book highly enough, however. It is a must read for runners of all types and anyone interested in the life story of a truly exceptional person.

4 comments about Never the Last Journey.

1. For many years my mother's family was presumed completely obliterated by the Holocaust until I found Dr. Zandman and his book. I was finally able to put fates with the faces of the people I knew only through aging photographs.
   
   This is a book of horrors and of triumph over adversity. That Dr. Zandman was able to survive what he did and still go on to become the fine international businessman that he did is nothing short of miraculous. Where others would have just ceased to go on he found the courage and the strength to live his life to it's fullest.
   
   The personal stories that he tells of his Great Aunt Sonya and his Grandfather Nochum are absolutely heartwrenching and leave you wondering simply how so many people could hate so much.



2. An ageless and inspiring story of determination, survival, and ultimately triumph. Zandman's story brings home minute details about being Jewish during this horrific period of time--right down to the mindset of most Jewish families in Poland. This book clearly illustrates how subtle, calculating, and conniving Hitler was as he, not all at once, but gradually moved the Jews from their homes, to the ghetto and finally the death camps.
   After I read this, the first time, I wanted nothing more than to meet Felix Zandman personally. Even the title inspired me to always push forward and to never give up.



3. As a stock analyst, I've seen many CEO's and heard many success stories. This is a heartwarming story of dedication and triumph unlike that of any other business executive. Despite spending his youth in hiding from Nazis, Dr. Zandman manages to get a PhD., move to America and found a small engineering company that ends up being one of the world's largest suppliers of electronics components.



4. Zandman's historical part of this book is great. It gives you a great perspective of his life during the Holocust. More background would have been great. Got the feeling that his business associates have been less than desirable chaps.

5 comments about Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot.

1. You know those books that promise you untold wealth and secrets to make you rich? This isn't one of them, which makes it one of the best reads I've seen in a while. It gives a realistic depiction of making money in virtual economies (which is pretty amazing in and of itself). It even explores and gives some interesting perspectives on work vs. play and the emergence and confidence of virtual economies.



2. Play Money, [...] Amazon.com, is an enjoyable three hundred page softbound book from Indiana author Julian Dibbell. Prior to this particular effort, Dibbell also authored another non-fiction book entitled My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World. Dibbell is currently a contributing editor for Wired magazine, and he's also had several lengthy pieces published in Details, Harper's, Le Monde, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, Time, and the Village Voice.
   
   Laughingly, Dibbell began selling virtual goods to members of online gaming communities - EverQuest, Final Fantasy, Star Wars Galaxies, Ultima Online, and World of Warcraft. - in hopes of developing a second career in early 2003. His goal was to get rich, document the process for a blog and book, and then exit. But while Dibbell started this venture optimistically - mingling with various weirdoes along the way - he lost his marriage due to this financial pursuit.
   
   Aside from that downer, Dibbell's book soars when examining legal implications of virtual economies. Dibbell introduces Blacksnow Interactive - a company that mined wealth from the in-game economy of Dark Age of Camelot early on in Chapter Two. Mythic Entertainment owns intellectual property rights to Dark Age of Camelot and frowned upon in-game items being auctioned on eBay. Soon thereafter, President Mark Jacobson called Meg Whitman and shut those auctions down. Prompting lawsuits.
   
   You sense Dibbell was skeptical when he began writing about MMO economies in 2002. Dibbell discovered John Dugger had bought a virtual house (for $750) previously owned by Troy Stolle inside Britannia, the mythical world of Ultima Online. Dibbell couldn't fathom why anyone would do this for a game, so he interviewed the 29-year-old Indianapolis construction worker that sold the house, and interviewed the 43-year-old Stillwater bread delivery man that bought the house.
   
   Much of Play Money concentrates on the vagaries of play, work, and a condition called flow. Dibbell also introduces us to [...] - reseller of second-hand items that mines wealth from the in-game economy of Ultima Online in Chapter Six. Bob Kiblinger, sole proprietor of [...], first spotted Stolle's UO account for sale on eBay. He then bought the account for $500, split up the items, then sold Stolle's virtual digs to Dugger for $750.
   
   Of the people profiled here, West Virginian Kiblinger comes off as the most likable. It's implied Kiblinger derives a six figure income off his online bartering, and that he has $15k tied up in "online inventory" at any given moment, but all of that could disappear at any given moment. For some reason though, Electronic Arts has chosen not to go after [...], unlike what happened between Mythic Entertainment and Blacksnow Interactive.
   
   Next, Dibbell compares the imaginary gold of UO to e-gold's gram. Launched in 1996, e-gold is one of six metal-backed currencies circulating online. Dibbell further compares the gold of UO to the Ithaca Hour, a paper currency launched in Ithaca during 1991 and backed by local labor. Finally, Dibbell compares the gold of UO to crypto cash - secure untraceable digital money proposed by mathematician David Chaum that lives on in finance geek sub communities.
   
   Eventually, Kiblinger informs Dibbell of a suspicious gold devaluation, and both realize another player called Ingotdude is involved in "gold farming." In short - Ingotdude was running a bot (composed of 22 PCs, each running a copy of the game, with characters in macro mode) inside Ultima Online which was generating real world payouts on the order of more than $300k. Dibbell is amused to later find that Blacksnow Interactive is behind Ingotdude's exploit.
   
   You'll be surprised to learn that over the course of a year, Dibbell did manage to earn $47,000 by selling intangible virtual goods online through Play Money. His goal was to earn more than $55k (his best year as a writer) but he failed in that respect. Spending 50 hours a week online cost Dibbell his marriage and emotional collapse, but his career eventually recovered and he did manage to finish this exceptional book.



3. This is really just another blog-turned-book, with a little bit of filler. The title misrepresents the book - he didn't quit his day job and he didn't even hit his fairly modest goal of a month's earnings exceeding his best as a writer, which is far short of the "millions" the subtitle advertises. I'd give him a pass if the title was obviously sarcastic, but it seems like a cheap ploy to up sales figures. The real slap comes about halfway through the book when blog posts are reproduced wholesale, which can easily be found on the internet on Dibbell's website.
   
   Dibbell is a good writer, but this book just doesn't come close to delivering. If you want a basic account of how you could have exploited Ultima Online five years ago, then by all means, this is the book for you. For everyone else, it's an extended blog post - a quick, basic read that doesn't have a whole lot of substance to it.



4. What if you could spend your day playing video games and still make a fortune? Wll, now it's possible for the best of what is called the 'gold farmers' to play games and buy and sell fantasy goods in the virtual world and make between 6 and 7 figures a year! Yes, and this author Julian Dibbell did just that -- quit his day job as a writer and became a virtual mogul. Along the way in 12 chapters he looks at the virtual marketplace for virtual loot and the growing economy online in multiplayer online role playing gams MORPGS and Virtual worlds like SecondLife.com to buy and sell virtual real estate, avatars, islands, services and even real life objects in virtual stores. From Ultima Online to paying the IRS -- it's an amazing new world online and whether it's reel or real is still to be determined by the players in the newest game in town.



5. I read this book because I had begun to hear about the world it describes and wanted to learn more. I was REALLY happy with my purchase! Dibbell combines personal experience, interesting interviews, and a broad intellectual reach to make comprehensible the "brave" "new" world of massive multi-user gaming and the way it is making us rethink a variety of taken for granted forms of common sense.
   
   The result is a lot of fun to read and highly educational at the same time.

5 comments about The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century.

1. The pieces of the Bin Laden family puzzle have been scattered across numerous continents and decades. With a doggedness that has already won him two Pulitzers, Steve Coll attacks the challenge of bringing these pieces together to form the definitive history of this enigmatic family. From published works to countless interviews with Bin Laden family and associates to long sequestered State Department documents, Coll assiduously mines the data and develops a portrait of one of the most recognizable names in the world. This portrait is immediately recognizable to everyone: money, political power, excess, self-destruction, contradiction, hypocrisy. The lives of the fifty-four children of Mohamed Bin Laden would not be out of place in the pages of the National Enquirer, People, or Forbes. One gets a sense of humanity from this all-powerful Saudi Arabian family. Unfortunately, even with all of this research, Coll's portrait still contains holes, and is far from being the definitive word on the Bin Ladens.
   
   While the collected evidence does flesh out many previously unknown details, it remains thin in those areas that will be of most interest to scholars and casual observers alike. Stories about the Bin Laden's love of flying and ownership of property or the latest gadgets are entertaining, but most readers are going to come to the book expecting a clear understanding of how the most famous Bin Laden fits into the dynamic. Granted, being the relative of the mastermind of the worst terrorist attack in history is bound to shut up even the most chatty individual. Throw in the added dimension of the potential loss of a family fortune through lawsuits related to said person, and the prospects for obtaining any real data becomes thin. Coll acknowledges this throughout The Bin Ladens, but it doesn't lessen the impact. By the end, the reader is left with just as many questions as when they started.
   
   Publicly, the Bin Laden family repudiated and disowned Osama in the early 1990s when he was primarily making trouble in Saudi Arabia. This repudiation only intensified as Osama's terrorist actions increased. Privately, however, the picture is murky. Coll tantalizes with snippets and anecdotes that certain elements of the family may have supported Osama, either tacitly or directly via financial means, but they ultimately end up going nowhere. For instance, near the end of the narrative, he throws out the comment from one of Osama's nieces that "some of the young people at the Bin Laden compound [in Jeddah] openly celebrated the September 11 attacks," but fails to add anything more. Peppered throughout the book are countless examples such as this where the author ultimately has to state that "the record is uncertain" or "the evidence just isn't there."
   
   Even more puzzling is the role that the governments of Saudi Arabia and even the United States played in supporting the Bin Laden family over the years. Why did Saudi Arabia issue diplomatic passports to non-governmental charities suspected of funneling cash to Al Qaeda? Did the FBI treat the issue of terrorist financing so gently because the CIA wrongly estimated its importance as being low, or was there political pressure from on high? What about Bush family friend, Jim Bath's, wild assertion that he ran supplies to Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan for the CIA during a time that the CIA has repeatedly claimed it did not have any contact with Osama? In the end, such unanswered questions leave the book feeling sparse and unfinished.
   
   All in all, though, one does get the impression that many of the deficiencies were caused by stonewalling from those who hold the puzzle pieces as opposed to any deficiencies on Coll's part. This being the first real, in-depth look at such a broad subject as this huge, secretive Saudi Arabian family, The Bin Ladens is an excellent starting point. Researchers will no doubt return to it and use it as the foundation for future treatises on Osama and the larger topic of the Global War on Terror. For that, it most certainly must be praised.



2. Yes, this is a long book; worth every minute. The depth of research is mind-boggling, but it is written with a clear, quickly-moving presentation. It is long on detail, extensive and interesting, short on editorializing: Coll leaves that up to the reader. Given the opacity of the Saud and bin Laden families' entrepreneurship, one is certainly left wondering! My favourite line actually appears at the very end: "...in the meanwhile, each time his audio- or videotapes reached Al-Jazeera or CNN, Osama reemphasized, like a Barbary pirate with a marketing degree, the impunity that he still enjoyed, as well as his continuing capacity to plan and inspire mass violence by exploiting the channels and the ethos of global integration." Another Pulitzer for Coll?



3. What an insight Mr. Coll gives to the Bin Laden family...I highly recommend this book!



4. Picked up this book after hearing the author interviewed on PBS. Given the family's aversion to publicity this represents an exhaustive effort to pry out detail. Coll tracks the family history from their humble beginnings in Yemen to the patriarch's rise in business association with the Saudi royal family, and to the present day. Usually after finishing a book this size I am ready to switch to something els, but at the end of this 575-page volume I found myself going back to reread the first few chapters. This held my interest and is worth the time.



5. Peterson's review is very good and captures the essence of the book. There is a good deal of information about the Saudi Monarchy in this book that can fill out reading from other sources. It's a poignant story at times evoking the normal tragedies of life in the early deaths of Mohamed, the founder of the dynasty and his heir, Salem. Mr. Coll has a gift for narrative non-ficiton and weaves the constant theme of aviation into the Bin Laden story as well as the destructive side of their construction business. It is a fascinating study of the Bin Ladin family and of Saudi Arabia as it grew into the twentieth century. As he did with Ghost Wars, Mr. Coll has produced another great book.
   
   I will plug Frontier of Faith here for a further study of where the battle formed and rages between Islam's radical arm and the West.

5 comments about Milton Friedman: A Biography.

1. A great read into the life of this fascinating man who was one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. It is tough to understate Friedman's influence, inside and out of economics: school vouchers, voluntary army, floating currencies, monetarist view of inflation, the death of Keynisianism. The book is also an excellent read for those interested in the history of economic thought and especially of the 'Chicago School'. Last but not least, the author gets the economics right, which is a rare feature in a book that delves into economics. That alone is worth four stars.



2. A previous reviewer is too kind when he writes that this book "veers a bit toward hagiography." It is a drive straight down the hagiography highway from beginning to end. The quality of Friedman's intellectual achievements is asserted but not supported, and the episodes of his life are strung together with no more narrative development than stops on a bus route. Nary a critical word is uttered. Several sections are maddeningly repetitive. We never have a sense that we are inside Friedman's mind, we are never given a chance to engage with one of the 20th Century's great iconoclasts, only exhorted to worship and admire.



3. I recommend "Milton Friedman: A Biography" to all readers, especially to young people who are looking for role models in economics and life in general. Many an economist found something, agreeable to them or not, that improved their academic lives at least just because they knew it, even if they did not know it well. Before Friedman free lunches were possible after all because economics was operating inside its production possibilities frontier (PPF). By pushing economics onto its PPF Friedman made free lunches disappear; the good thing is that the public good in the form of knowledge that Friedman's research program produced is so huge that economics shall have plenty of leftovers to chew on for some time to come. The prospective economist is better off even if all he/she reads of Friedman is "The Monetary History of the United States" (with Anna Jacobson Schwartz) and "The Methodology of Positive Economics". As Friedman points out in The Methodology of Economics "the process [of constructing hypotheses] must be discussed in psychological, not logical, categories; studied in autobiographies, not treatises on scientific method; and promoted by maxim and example, not syllogism or theorem" (p. 43). Thus, between the two books one learns how to identify problems and how to go about solving them. This biography is a valuable addition.
   
   The evidence of Friedman's contributions to the general public is not hard to find and document. For example, sensible deregulation led to cheaper airplane tickets, which induced more flights to more places. The efficacy of volunteer armed forces as a component of an effective national defense is now too commonsensical to restate here. Perhaps Arthur Schopenhauer was correct after all that "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
   
   What is very interesting about this book - Milton Friedman: A biography - are insights about the person behind the public good many people around the world come to know just as Friedman. Behind that person were the individual, family, proximate cause, and initial conditions all of which made possible the growth of ideas we associate with Professor Friedman. In the world of Friedmans ideas, both as public and private, are anchored in individual freedom and choice, which only a capitalist nature nurtures. That one individual could have done so much so long (9 decades) is worth volumes in itself; that the intellectual laborer remained sane, rather than vane, about his accomplishments and the fame they conferred is another remarkable quality, and an interesting part of Mr. Ebenstein's book.
   
   To say Friedman made a significant scholarly contribution to economics is a positive (testable) statement. If even only half of what Lanny Ebenstein writes about Friedman the person is true, then the author/philosopher Jean Paul was surely incorrect in his assertion that " Fine minds are seldom fine souls". In Friedman's case a good soul and an even better mind were joint-products (complements). I learned all of that and more from this book, so can anyone. A good reading, indeed!
   
   Amavilah, Author
   Modeling Determinants of Income in Embedded Economies
   ISBN: 1600210465



4. This is a solid, well written biography. It veers a bit toward hagiography, but is still very useful for those interested in history of
   thought, Milton Friedman, University of Chicago, Economics and Social Policy. The economics is fine, but occassionally some of the subtleties are missed - though this would have made for a longer book. It's a good
   read - fine fare for an airplane trip, for example.



5. I approached this book with both a sense of excitement and apprehension; excitement because of the subject,and apprehension having been disappointed by Ebenstein's previous works on Hayek.
   
   However, given the constraints of dealing at great length about every aspect of the life and works of Friedman in such a short work, this volume is very readable and provides an acceptable summary of the great man until someone provides a thoroughly researched and comprehensive work on Friedman, similar to Skidelsky on Keynes.
   
   I finished the book in almost one sitting so it was gripping ...

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