Monday, April 21, 2025

The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War

Jim Sciutto
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Instant New York Times Bestseller
A Politico Top 10 Most Anticipated Book of 2024
A New York Times Notable Book
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice


“An absorbing account of 21st-century brinkmanship . . . . one that should be read by every legislator or presidential nominee sufficiently deluded to think that returning America to its isolationist past or making chummy with Putin is a viable option in today’s world.”–New York Times Book Review

The essential new book by CNN anchor and chief national security analyst Jim Sciutto, identifying a new, more uncertain global order with reporting on the frontlines of power from existing wars to looming ones across the globe.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 dawned what Francis Fukuyama called “The End of History.” Three decades later, Jim Sciutto said on CNN’s air as the Ukraine war began, that we are living in a “1939 moment.” History never ended—it barely paused—and the global order as we long have known it is now gone. Powerful nations are determined to assert dominance on the world stage. And as their push for power escalates, a new order will affect everyone across the globe. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a part of it, but in reality, this power struggle impacts every corner of our world—from Helsinki to Beijing, from Australia to the North Pole. This is a battle with many fronts: in the Arctic, in the oceans and across the skies, on man-made islands and redrawn maps, and in tech and cyberspace.

Through globe-spanning, exclusive interviews with dozens of political, military, and intelligence leaders, Sciutto defines our times as a return of great power conflict, “a definitive break between the post–Cold War era and an entirely new and uncertain one.” With savvy, thorough, in-person reporting, he follows-up his 2019 bestseller, The Shadow War: Inside Russia’s and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America, which focused on the covert tactics of a hidden conflict.

The Return of Great Powers analyzes a historic and visible shift in real time. It details the realities of this new post-post-Cold War era, the increasingly aligned Russian and Chinese governments, and the flashpoint of a new, global nuclear arms race. And it poses a question: As we consider uncertain, even terrifying, outcomes, will it be possible for the West and Russia and China to prevent a new World War?

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

香港史讀本

劉智鵬 , 劉蜀永
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一本既有知識性,又易於閱讀的香港歷史知識讀本

本書是權威香港史專家編寫的香港史普及讀本,全書分上下兩篇:
一、上篇從史前寫到九七回歸,就每個歷史階段選取若干主題,扼要敘述,具有連貫性。
二、下篇論述香港社會的發展特點,尤其突出香港與祖國內地、與世界的緊密聯繫。
三、本書配有多幅圖片,並輔以多個「歷史文化知多點」的小專題,跟正文互相補充,增加本書的閱讀趣味。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)


Monday, April 14, 2025

The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
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NAMED ONE OF THE TOP 5 BOOKS OF 2024 ON CBS SUNDAY MORNING
ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2024
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

“Vivid, revelatory, and politically unpredictable…What bothers Abrahamian, in the end, isn’t the anarchic but the unfair; if capital is free, people deserve the same respect.” —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker

"A season of unrest looms ahead, and The Hidden Globe lays out the unvarnished truth in a luminous feat of reportage.”—Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Borders draw one map of the world; money draws another. A journalist’s riveting account exposes a parallel universe that has become a haven for the rich and powerful.


A globe shows the world we think we know: neatly delineated sovereign nations that grant or restrict their citizens’ rights. Beneath, above, and tucked inside their borders, however, another universe has been engineered into existence. It consists of thousands of extraterritorial zones that operate largely autonomously, and increasingly for the benefit of the wealthiest individuals and corporations.

Atossa Abrahamian traces the rise of this hidden globe to thirteenth-century Switzerland, where poor cantons marketed their only commodity: bodies, in the form of mercenary fighters. Over time, economists, theorists, statesmen, and consultants evolved ever more sophisticated ways of exporting and exploiting statelessness, in the form of free trade zones, flags of convenience, offshore detention centers, charter cities controlled by foreign corporations, and even into outer space. By mapping this countergeography, which decides who wins and who loses in the new global order—and helping us to see how it might be otherwise—The Hidden Globe fascinates, enrages, and inspires.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

消失的記憶 舊香港的光影故事

勇先
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【香港人,同笑同哭的光影記憶】

香港過去一段段的光影故事,一齣齣的本土電視劇和電影,除了陪伴我們成長,也是我們的香港記憶。

本書嘗試以文字作為放映機,帶著我們一幕幕回看上世紀香港的影視作品,字裡行間泛起的光影記憶,與幾代香港人同笑同哭,走過多少高山低谷。看著本書的舊香港光影故事,彷彿又回到那年那天我們最美好的時光,在迷失中,還是記得最愛的那個——香港。

作者前作《消失的記憶 101個即將遺忘的香港故事》長期高踞香港誠品書店及獨立書店暢銷書榜,本書為2024年推出全新作品,獲得香港大學香港研究課程 朱耀偉教授專文推薦。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)


Monday, April 7, 2025

MoneyGPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy

James Rickards
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“Essential reading” – Forbes

From the New York Times bestselling author of The New Great Depression and Currency Wars, a telling prediction for how AI will endanger global economic markets and security


In November 2022, OpenAI released GPT-4 in a chatbot form to the public. In just two months, it claimed 100 million users—the fastest app to ever reach this benchmark. Since then, AI has become an all-consuming topic, popping up on the news, in ads, on your messenger apps, and in conversations with friends and family. But as AI becomes ubiquitous and grows at an ever-increasing pace, what does it mean for the financial markets?

In MoneyGPT, Wall Street veteran and former advisor to the Department of Defense James Rickards paints a comprehensive picture of the danger AI poses to the global financial order, and the insidious ways in which AI will threaten national security. Rickards shows how, while AI is touted to increase efficiency and lower costs, its global implementation in the financial world will actually cause chaos, as selling begets selling and bank runs happen at lightning speed. AI further benefits malicious actors, Rickards argues, because without human empathy or instinct to intervene, threats like total nuclear war that once felt extreme are now more likely. And throughout all this, we must remain vigilant on the question of whose values will be promoted in the age of AI. As Rickards predicts, these systems will fail when we rely on them the most.

MoneyGPT shows that the danger is not that AI will malfunction, but that it will function exactly as intended. The peril is not in the algorithms, but in ourselves. And it’s up to us to intervene with old-fashioned human logic and common sense before it’s too late.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

弱勢者視角下的香港未來

羅金義
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香港自20世紀中後期以後,憑着優越的地理位置和開放的政策,逐步發展成為東方之珠、大都會、國際金融中心。這些美譽突顯了香港的繁華,成為了無數人的向往。然而,在這座燦爛輝煌的城市背後,也有着晦暗、貧困的一面,存在着不少弱勢社群。

香港有哪些「弱勢社群」?少數族裔、殘障人士、低收入貧窮戶、病弱長者、新移民家庭;又或是同性戀者、跨性別人士,以至相對於成年人的青少年。他們面對生活上各種各樣的困難及有形無形的歧視、面對融入社會的挑戰、面對惡劣的生活環境,以至氣候變化也給他們帶來額外的威脅。當我們說香港正面對種種的困境及挑戰,也就是生活在這裏的人的困境及挑戰;而這種困境,我們必須要從社會上弱勢社群的視覺去解讀,方可窺見問題的根本。

「享天下之利者,任天下之患」。香港在璀璨的背後,隱藏着許多社會問題。本書輯錄了十二篇文章,涉及貧弱、青年、少數族裔、社區發展等不同議題,逐一從弱勢社群視角分析詳述。到底弱勢者正面臨什麼困境,社會又該如何幫助他們,社會政策範式應予何種轉移?作為香港的一分子,作者期望讀者大眾都能關注正視這些議題。

(摘錄自 cityu.edu.hk/upress)