Why The West Rules~For Now

This short review is written by a friend of the Buku Project's, Nazri Awang*

This brilliant book is written by Ian Morris, a professor of history at Stanford University. In it, he argues that it is geography rather than racial supremacy, religion, or luck that somehow shapes the world as we know it today. From the start to finish, the author tries to compress and summarize 15000 years of humanity development into a comprehensive analysis of bits and pieces of history, as left by our ancestors.

Over the very long period of human existence, the old world was already shaped by its two geographically unique communities of the east and the west. Morris focused more on the biggest and most developed civilizations at different time instances, therefore some empires were not mentioned as frequently as the more prosperous ones. The main theme of the book was about the advantage of backwardness, explaining how a previously laggard, poorly governed area can evolve in a span of a few hundred years, overtaking the previous super-power.

Western centre of civilization had changed plenty of times, from the ashes of the Greek empire, more city-states sprawled and grew faster than ever. The Romans, Persians, ancient Egyptians were the stars of their time, each one of them occupying distinct prosperous period. Renaissance movement induced more development in northern Europe, Britain in particular. However, in 20th century Pax Britannica slowly faded away and from there, came the new super-power in the form of the Great United States of America.

A similar kind of development was unfolding in the east as well, largely in Chinese mainland. Throughout history, it was not always the west who hold the the winner cap. The east was far on top for a few hundred years before western Europe bounced back from its dark age. Again, applying the theory of advantages of backwardness, the hegemony of the world will always change, favouring those who successfully adapt themselves to the changes in humanity evolution faster and better than the rest, it is inevitable.

"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." ~ Churchill

*Nazri Awang is a final year MORSE student at the University of Warwick and is expected to graduate in a few months. Nazri now lives in Coventry and keeps a very informative blog: http://www.nazriawang.com/

OUTLIERS: THE STORY OF SUCCESS by Malcolm Gladwell

This review is written by a friend of the Buku Project's, Hamedullah Muhammad*

Outlier (def): A person or thing away from others or outside its proper place.

Often, when we read about a success story or a rags-to-riches tale, it talks much about the person. It talks about sacrifice, dedication, perseverance and uncompromising attitude.

More often than not, we will also come across something along the line of "..despite his poor background..." or "..although disadvantaged in.." or something similar. Well, "Outliers" is a book about success. But, it is also about why we should, instead of saying "despite" and "although", say "because".

The author, Malcolm Gladwell, divides this book into two chapters. The first is entitled Opportunity. Malcolm asserts that in order to make sense of success, we need to look at a bigger picture rather than merely concentrate on individuals. He talks about advantage, opportunity and luck; inter alia

• How being born in the first four months of the year can make one a professional ice hockey player in Canada,

• Why without Hamburg there would be no The Beatles,

• Why out of 70 of the richest people throughout human history 20 are Americans born around 1834 and

• Why IQ scores don't really matter.

By the end of chapter one, you will get a sense of what Malcolm wanted to convey; success is not as individualistic as we have come to acknowledge it today. He said “the biggest misconception about success is that we do it solely on our smarts, ambition, hustle and hard work”.

His second chapter is titled 'Legacy'. Malcolm argues that we have become a society too wary of making generalization. We thought that it would be rude to associate success or in more obvious case, failure with race or culture. We're afraid that we may appear to be undermining people. Malcolm begs to differ. He mentions about:

• How being a Korean or Colombian flight pilot makes one more prone to crash a plane in the 70's, and
• How Korean Airlines turned from notoriously known for plane crashes to one of the safest in the world today.

Interestingly, Malcolm also tackles the "Asians are good at math" notion in one of the subchapters entitled Rice Paddies and Math, explaining the influence of language and rice paddies on children's mathematical ability.

Malcolm has an extraordinary skill of turning dry statistic data, one that would probably bore us in its raw form, into something we can identify with and worth pondering over. This book is not in any way undermining the determination and effort of successful individuals. It is merely saying that success has a blueprint; it is a function of opportunity and legacy. Success is intertwined with society. Bigger forces are at play. And they could be measured. And what gets measured gets managed.

The enjoyment of reading Outliers, in my opinion, comes from its ability to make one think "I am an outlier". Not that one could become successful suddenly. But one would become more appreciative of his/her world and possibly would look harder for opportunity and chance. That is probably the main message Malcolm wanted to pass through; that success can be shared to everybody if we as a society can make sense of it.

*Hamedullah graduated from UCL in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.He's currently employed by MISC Bhd. Being a Malaysian, he started taking interest in reading a bit late, about two years ago. He heard about thebukuproject some time ago in London, thought it is a brilliant endeavour but only now decides to contribute something. As they say, "Hands that give also receive".

Delayed Chic Flick Chic Part 1: Eat Pray Love

Okay, okay I know that my last post was quite a decade ago (In which i am meant to say, happy 2011!). Wasting a few lines for an excuse is pretty much pointless so, let's go straight to the point. Now, drum-roll please!

Yes, yes I know. This is quite an outdated book, some might say, since the sequel is already been published (and some already reviewed it). I am so wishing to make this earlier but again, due to the time constraints, earliest would be now.

So here's the story of the book and I, behind the scene : First, the only thing that I knew the moment I ever touched this book, made my way to the cashier and paid for it was: It is a movie by Julia Roberts. The rest, zilch. I even thought that this book is 100% fictional! Yes I know, I should have made my own research first. I just love surprises, most of the time.

Luckily, the book worth every penny. Or ringgit.

This book revolved around the life of the author herself, Elizabeth Gilbert (or Liz), post-divorce in which she had traveled to Italy, India and Indonesia (Bali, to be exact). She went all the way crossing the continents, for the love of exploring the world and most importantly, herself. In Italy, she spoiled herself with the lavish food (Now now, this doesn't do much justice. Who doesn't love Italian food, anyway? My sympathy, and *ahem* your loss!) and of course, Italian language. She joined the crowd of soccer fans, swooned by the famous arch and buildings of Rome, and get spontaneous and surprised herself everyday with new things as she enjoyed Italy. In India, she went into another "side of the world", in which she joined the meditation of Guru's Ashram. The first part of her India "exploration" immersed her into frustration as the whole atmosphere brought her into something different than Italy. She met a friend, Richard, in which often referred her as "Groceries", a nickname he profoundly used after he saw how much amount of food she could eat. This journey that started off with depression, swiftly turned 180 degrees as she found tranquility and reason to live: God. Lastly, she found herself on her way to Bali, Indonesia to meet a medicine man she formerly met a couple of years before, Ketut. She promised she would return to Bali to teach Ketut English (how cute!) English, only to find that Ketut, being an old man, had little fond of memories of her. In Bali, she discovered another different culture of Balinese, in which she described as "lodged, completely held, within an elaborate lattice of customs." Think of Hinduism traditions met hierarchical village communities met rich and beautiful paddy fields operated by the local people. She spent her days in Bali to meditate, daily meeting with Ketut, and walked around the town, enjoying the picturesque view of the paddy field ( Ubud's paddy field has such magnificent view! ) or just talked to the people themselves. She met Wayan, a Balinese healer which later turned into a friend, and later on she found herself the "love" part of the "Eat, Pray, Love" ( geddit?), a Brazillian man named Felipe.

My verdict: 4 out 5.

1) In a way, this book is rather a book for feminist. But then again, it's a documented life of a woman, what can be manly about that?

2) What created attention here is how Liz put the story lines and plot. I like the way she narrated in this book for it is so honest, even for the darkest thought. Funny and odd, but honest. She is lucky for she has met people like Ketut, Wayan, or even Richard (who seemed to like nothing but to mock her at the first place) and her bunch of Italian friends. I like how Ketut put it:

"To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the Earth that it's like you have four legs, instead of two. That way, you can stay in the world. ." ( para 3, page 27)

and how Richard quoted:

" See, now that's your problem. You're wishin' too much baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be." (page 150)

And how Liz used to write to herself in Italy:

"I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me." (para 5, page 54)

(We all have one of the days when we feel the world is coming to get us. Come on, admit it.)

and many more I wish I could share. But then again, what fun could it be without reading the book itself, right?:)

3) If you happen to read one of my posts in my personal blog, I have once said that I'd love to do some world-travelling and exploring and consider it is as a job (like Ian Wright and Samantha Brown. Watching too much of Travelling Channel, I presume). What Liz did, was too good to be true to ever happen to me, for this moment of course. I always want to go to Rome or Italy, generally (Ede, remember our foreign exchange students interview? Haha. I said I wanted to go to Italy because of its food. Signed, honest me. Duh) But someday, insyaAllah. Someday. And Ubud, Bali is beautiful too. India, yes. (But my ex-supervisor used to say that if you went to India and returned home without diarrhea, consider your trip invalid. LOL)

4) Liz's favorite word: Attraversiamo :)

5) Apparently I am not really bothered with Felipe, or David (Yes, despite the fact that the role is played by James Franco in the movie version) , or any of Liz's love interest. What amazed me is the people Liz got to meet, like Giovanni, or Sofie, or Ketut, or Wayan or even Richard from Texas. These kind of people she met, by taking chances (and challenges) to go by herself travelling alone. And also, she really is lucky for having friends to help her raised money for Wayan's house. Now that's just awesome, no?

p.s: Delayed Chic Flick Chic Part 2 is coming, erm, soon? I won't promise anything "legend-wait for it-ary* but I will try my best!

The Island of Dr Moreau

--This review was written a few weeks ago. It is only published today because, well, it's me =)

Feels good to be able to walk again without hurting my joints. After 3 days of being bedridden following a very nasty fever, I managed to pick up a book and actually finished it. This time, it was a classic that used to scare the living daylight out of me, "The Island of Doctor Moreau" by H G Wells.

The story revolves around Edward Prendick, who, after surviving a shipwreck, chanced onto an island, with the help of a strange man called Montgomery. He later discovered that the inhabitants of the island are animals that unmistakably have human features, thanks to the laboratory vivisectional works of one Doctor Moreau. The doctor envisions a world where animals are as refined as humans and humans become a step closer to perfection. In order to achieve this, these "animals" are made to observe the Law, which includes among others, the prohibition to eat meat, the prohibition to walk on all fours, and the prohibition to kill.

Now, as I recall my first time reading it back in 2002, it surprises me that I was not more shocked back then. I was certainly terrified of the thought of what the main character, Edward Prendick must be going through, but I don't remember it to be quite as shocking as it is now. Perhaps age adds to my perceiving the whole situation in the light that it deserves.

Take for example, Prendick's horror at seeing the birth of a creature that is half pig and half human. I can't, for the life of me, imagine such an ugly spectacle. I am not just talking about the physical aspect of it, but even the idea is an abomination to me. Of course, the novel seeks to have the reader think of the moral implication of playing God. From my own reading, I find the whole text very damning of vivisection, and my stand on this issue is very similar. To be fair, Wells did not hide the fact that he is all against it as well. So, readers looking for an objective made up story revolving vivisection will probably not find what they are looking for in this book.

David Thewlis as Edward in the film adaptation of the book (1996)

But apart from that, there is another interesting angle that this book takes. Near the end of the book, a character observes that "to go on two legs is very hard." Being human is hard, which is why man is always so close to falling prey to his bestial instincts. What other explanations are there for the debasing acts that have been committed the world over? It's human capacity and divine order for restraint that make this world slightly more livable. And this book shows the possible calamities that might ensue when that fragile order is tampered with.

And in the end, one is left wondering if Dr Moreau's plan for the perfect human would have succeeded after all. I am still thinking about this, long after I am finished with the book. Now, what if we want to be a perfect human? Do we need to be biologically improved or would nurture suffice?

Again, to go on two legs is very hard.

It's All About the Bike - Robert Penn

I admit that I was intrigued by this book because I just recently learnt how to cycle. And because I like the cover design. A shallow move of no regret.

Part biography part history part engineering I don't know what people categorise this book in, non-fiction oh yes. The writer narrates his journey to the one bicycle, not a perfect one, but his perfect one (And very expensive too). He laced it up with facts and the history of the two-wheel; and he did it brilliantly: lightly funny, warmly personal, heavy with content yet accessible even with plenty of technical terms. Now I know the history of random household names, Michelin, Dunlop, Benz, Ford, all related to this one amazing machine. The amazing machine which shapes our society in its subtle ways, something so obvious that I overlooked it before.

I find the writing to be my favourite bit, it keeps me turning the pages for more, for the language and the wisdom between the lines. The melancholic reference to workmanship and community.

"Not long ago, much of what we owned was alive with the skill, and even the idealism, of the people who made it - the blacksmith who forged our tools, the cobbler, the wood-turner, the carpenter, the wheelwright, and the seamstress and tailor who made the clothes we wore."

“The big house in the suburbs with a fence around it, then driving ten miles to school and twenty miles to work every day – this destroys communities.”

I might not be able to relate on his love towards cycling but the passion is evident within the pages. The review stops here – am highly recommending it to bike lovers and not.

This review is the second review featured by Alia Salleh. A "Very short actually," review (according to her), nevertheless it never failed to tempt me (and I know you too) to get the book! On behalf of The Buku Project, I'd like to thank her for her sweet effort :)

Has anyone read this before?

Book Fest Malaysia 2010

The biggest bookfest in South East Asia is here! It'll feature Chinese and English books published in several Asian countries, and also internationally.

For those of you who have started Raya holiday and have run out of books to read at home, you might wanna check out this link:

Book Fest Malaysia

To sum up, the important details are as follows:

• Book Fest Malaysia 2010
• 4th - 12th September 2010
• Conventions and Exhibition Site, KLCC

So, is anyone going? Jom! :D