Weekend Reading (Even Though the Weekend is Half Over)....

I know, I know - it's already Saturday night and I'm just putting out my weekend reading recommendations.  Sorry. I have been out of town and just catching up now on my blogging. I've just picked up two books for the weekend and am looking forward to reading both of them them.  First, I grabbed a copy of  Deng-Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra Vogel.  It is, as they say, a hefty tome (928 pages) and I suspect I'll need the better part of the week to get through it (if I'm lucky being the slow reader that I am).  But Vogel has done such outstanding work on modern China over his long and distinguished career that it seems to be a very valuable read and important contribution to understanding how China has gotten where it is today.  This may be one of Vogel's finest works and although I am only about 100 pages into it, it is very impressive in its breath and sweep of history and of the man.

It can very much be argued that Deng was the man who propelled China into modernity and away from the nightmare of the Cultural Revolution and the Cult of Mao (it seems centuries ago now, doesn't it when you stop and look at China today).   He will always have on his hands the crushing oppression of Tianamen Square -- an action that will live in infamy.  A complex man with a very unique background (having lived and been educated in Paris for most of the 1920's), this book looks like a very interesting reevaluation of his life and times.

The other book I grabbed (onto my Kindle) is Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum's analysis of the future of the United States entitled That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back.  The title says it all -- the authors argue (who is there to argue back?) that the United States has fallen behind the rest of the world in our competitive capabilities.  I recently read Mandelbaum's other recent book and one of our first weekend-reading recommendations (The Frugal-Superpower: Americas Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era) and found it enlightening and right on the mark.  Both Friedman from his many columns and Mandelbaum understand the United States has spent far beyond its means, lost sight of the extraordinarily fast-changing global marketplace and somehow lost our competitive edge. My suspicion is their book will essentially launch a boomlet of similar books, especially as we get closer to the 2012 presidential elections.

If any of you read either of these books, I am eager to hear your thoughts on them.  Hope you find these recommendations helpful!