In this, the second edition of the very recently added feature on Sahar’s Reviews—a monthly round-up of my wonderful husband’s reviews—he brings to you four more reviews (which are also available on his blog and on Goodreads): Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric Schlosser, How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, by Franklin Foer, Beyond the Culture of Contest, by Michael Robert Karlberg, and The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric Schlosser

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Spoiler alert: reading this book will make you want to avoid fast food and some other types of food for quite some time, potentially forever. Eric Schlosser’s book is seemingly well researched, and explains things very well in stories that are both capturing and engaging. The story unfolds together with the growth of the fast food industry, and the practices that follow with it. Unfortunately there is a lot that is being done purely for profit, without much regard for the needs of the human beings who are actually meant to eat the food.
What I particularly enjoyed was the epilogue, where Schlosser not only points out what needs to be done, but also by whom. This is not simply a critique of practices and processes in the industry, but concrete suggestions for steps that can be taken to improve the current situations. Well worth the read, even though you might want to shy away from some type of food for some time!

Beyond the Culture of Contest, by Michael Robert Karlberg

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is simply amazing in its analysis and commentary on the current state of the world. Looking at the economic, political and legal systems, how they’re tied together and essentially run by money, creating an unsustainable society.

The culture of contest raises us in a mindset that normalizes adversarialism, conflict and contest, and looking at other ways of organizing society and world seems unrealistic and naive at best. Although the current culture of contest has led us to where it has, and we have made many advancements, looking at all the current problems in the world – environment, political and social instability, etc. – it is clear that continuing in this way is not viable, and a new order is needed.

An interesting analysis is made in the last chapter, where a suggestion is made on how to overturn the current order. Michael Karlberg mentions playing a different cultural game and not buy into the culture of contest – the rules are set up so that the ones with the most money will win in the long run – so the mode of operation is to play a different game, and win by attrition. As more and more people will switch over to play a different cultural game of mutualism, support and cooperation, the old order will slowly fall.

Of course, doing all of this is not easy, but we have to start somewhere.

How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, by Franklin Foer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m a little bit disappointed after reading this book. While there are good connections between football (yes, I choose to call it that) and events in societies and countries around the world, there doesn’t seem to be much of an explanation but rather correlation or at best causation. The style of writing is good and capturing, but each section and chapter just left me waiting for the real punchline or some sort of pointer on how/where things were going, but there were no predictions or anything there. Good read, but still slightly disappointing.

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

They say that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I wouldn’t stretch it as far with this book, but NNT is riding a very high horse, and proclaiming himself to be highly knowledgeable and speaking very lowly of many others. While there are a lot of good and valid points being made throughout the book, the tone is just off-putting.