Optimism about the development of human society is not a question of temperament or instinct, but proven by evidence. Since 1800 life expectancy has doubled, real income has risen nine times, people are one third better fed, child mortality has dropped by two thirds, life expectancy has increased by one third, many diseases have been virtually eliminated, literacy has become widespread and telephones, flush toilets, refrigerators and bicycles have become ubiquitous. Similar progress has been made since the 1950's as many of us can remember.

But at what cost ask the pessimists? Ridley debunks the conventional wisdoms of deteriorating environment, exponential population growth, greater inequality and social breakdown.

The most fundamental feature of the modern world has been the increasing pace of innovation which outpaces population explosion. But from where does this innovation come? Is it driven by science or the development of intellectual property or government? Ridley attributes it to exchange or trade. It is the ever increasing rate of exchange of goods, services and ideas that causes the ever-increasing rate of innovation.

Ridley maintains that whilst optimism is distinctly unfashionable it is more realistic and borne out by subsequent events than apocalyptical pessimism. And optimism is not callous indifference to suffering. It is the opposite - ambitious optimism is morally mandatory. Because there is so much suffering we should not get in the way of innovation and economic progress. For example Borlaug and his dwarf wheats faced innumerable hurdles to acceptance. But by 1963, 95% of Mexican wheat was Borlaug's variety and wheat yields were 6 times what they previously were. Borlaug then took his new varieties to Egypt, Pakistan and India. The green revolution confounded the Malthus population doomsters. Innovation in genetic modification of food crops, stem cell research and nuclear energy face similar hurdles to acceptance. People do not like technological change but embrace it at the same time.

According to Matt Ridley the key to the great leap forward of homo sapiens from the slow progress of the erectus hominids and Neanderthals, and indeed all other species, was the development of barter. He interprets human society as a product of a long history of evolution through natural selection among cultural rather than genetic variation. Just as sex made biological evolution cumulative, so exchange or trade made cultural evolution cumulative and intelligence collective.

He builds on the theories of others for their insights, including Richard Wrangham's proposition that the use of fire enabled cooking providing the release of more energy from food. More energy allowed development of the brain. More energy from food meant less time needed to be spent on hunting and therefore created leisure time. Leisure time and trade resulted in specialisation, the division of labour and innovation. Technology was made possible by the division of labour : market exchange calls forth innovation. It is plausible!

Other theories are rained down which I find persuasive: the success of human being and trade dependent crucially but precariously on numbers and connections i.e. urbanisation; agriculture was made possible because of trade and without trade there would be no farming; the more people trust each other, the more successful that society is; the importance of oxytocin as a human hormone making people feel good about each other and creating empathy and encouraging trade.

But he then focuses on the two great pessimisms of today - Africa and Climate change.

He argues forcibly that Africa is not the basket case of popular perception and provides the evidence from the recent economic growth, to the reduction in AIDS, famine, wars and conflicts and increased life expectancy.

On climate change he accepts that global warming by increased carbon dioxide levels undoubtedly provide a challenge and that catastrophe is not impossible. But he argues that, on the IPCC's own figures, probability of global warming leading to catastrophe is small. The probability of rapid and severe climate change is small; the probability of net harm from the most likely climate change is small; and the probability of no new low-carbon energy technologies emerging is small. Multiply those small probabilities together and the probability of a prosperous twenty first century is large.

Read this book and your views and prejudices will either be reinforced or changed. Whatever you will end happier than you started! But you will feel the argument is thought through not based on blind optimism.

The common image of the individual operating alone in the laboratory dreaming up brilliant flashes of inspiration is countered by Johnson with the argument that ideas are generated by crowds where connection is more important than protection.

Steven Johnson's technique is the personalisation of his theme, drawing unexpected conclusions from the personal story and then weaving it into the next story. For example he brings to life through stories his assertion that good ideas are built on previous work and depend upon the variety of other stimuli around them. He recounts how in the late 1870's a Parisian obstetrician named Stephane Tarnier took a day off from his work at Maternite de Paris and paid a visit to the nearby Paris Zoo where chicken eggs were being incubated. It gave Tarnier the inspiration to develop incubation for babies leading to a medical advance that rivals any more well known innovations, such as radiation therapy or double heart bypass, in terms of giving humans longer life. Then follows the sequel about Timothy Prestero, an MIT professor who visited the Indonesian city of Meulaboh after the 2004 Indian Tsunami. He discovered that eight baby incubators, donated by a range of international organisations, were broken down through lack of spare parts. Prestoro and his team decided to build an incubator out of car parts that were abundant in the developing world - an idea that had originated with a Boston doctor named Jonathon Rosen. From this Johnson asserts that good ideas develop like this NeoNurture incubator. "The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table."

The astounding detail in this short paragraph brings a richness to his arguments about the generation of ideas.

Johnson counters the colloquial description of good ideas as sparks, flashes or eureka moments and likens them to networks. For new ideas the sheer size of network is needed and it needs to be plastic - capable of reconfiguration. Innovation thrives on a wide pool of minds. The eureka moment is usually preceded by the slow hunch like Darwin's theory of evolution that developed over many years.

Johnson extols the power of accidental connections or serendipity in the recognition of the significance of the new ideas. Innovation prospers when ideas can be serendiptiously connected and recombined with other ideas, when hunches can stumble across other hunches. Walls dividing ideas such as patents, trade secrets and proprietary technology inhibit serendipidy. Open environments are more conducive to innovation than closed.

Error which creates a path that leads you out of your comfort zone and exaptation , which are traits optimised for a specific use getting hijacked for a completely different use (birds feathers evolved for warmth proving useful for flying) are key paths to innovation. The history of the world wide web designed for the academic environment now used for shopping, sharing photos and Google.

Johnson classifies sources of key innovations from 1400 to the present day according to whether they were driven by the individual or a network and whether they were market driven or non market. He concludes that non market, open platform networked approach is now far more prolific. Witness Google, Twitter, Amazon.

Powerful , often controversial but immensely readable. The appendix alone describing the key innovations from 1400 to now is a fascinating read.

Why read a book about cod? Because I had read Mark's latest Basque history and I was intrigued to see if he could repeat the compulsive reading about a subject about which I knew little.

"Cod" is strong on the role the fish played in power politics, navigation and the making of history in past centuries. It weaves into the book the struggle for sea supremacy particularly between the Portugese and the Spanish and the British. It is graphic in its description of the rigours and risks of fishermen. It ascribes the nutrition provided by cod to allowing the great voyages of peoples from the Vikings to the Basques. It provides the background to the opening up of Newfoundland and New England and the voyages to discover other parts of the world.

But the book is more than a book about fish. It reinterprets in some detail the American War of Independence and the attitude to the slave trade in the light of the importance of the Grand banks fishing grounds. Historically cod fishing was a crucially important economic driver.

But, in recent years, lack of control or international coordination of overfishing has resulted in decimation of stocks. Glimmers of hope are provided by the fact that decimated cod stocks have been restored fairly quickly in some cases, such as in 1989 when the Norwegian government realised its cod stocks were in serious decline. And the possibility that cod farming holds out for re-establishing stocks.

But Mark Kurlansky is very sceptical of the ability of to restore stocks where overfishing has been severe. He is very scathing of the EU Common Fisheries policy and of the ability of nations to cooperate on fishing. It is not just the fish that are dying, it is the fishing communities and the fishermen. The book sees no hope for the future of a cod fishing industry of significance or importance.

A good read. Not as powerful as Mark's Basque history and deflating in its conclusions.

This all encompassing history of a small region of Europe I have never been to and have no reason to empathise with, managed to provide compelling reading.

The book paints a picture of a violent and hard fought history of Basqueness with its rich oral Euskera language, the Basque legal Fueros system, its recipes and food and portraits of leading people. Though their land resides in three provinces of France and four of Spain, Basques have always insisted they have a country and they call it Euskadi. All the powerful peoples around them - the Celts and the Romans, the royal houses of Aquitaine, Navarra, Aragon and Castile; later the Spanish and French monarchies, dictatorships and republics - have tried to subdue and assimilate them and all have failed.

The history is violent from the Inquisition's attempts in the 1600's to weed out Basque witches to the brutal and complicated nineteenth century Carlist civil wars, the French Revolution that set off not only Spaniards against Basques, but also Basques against Basques to Franco's civil war in the 20th century and then ETA.
Whilst the Basques are united by language and identify with their family home, they are an outward looking, entrepreneurial people of traders, fishermen and whalers who prior to Columbus were fishing and whaling as far away as Norway and Newfoundland. They probably had settled in the US prior to Columbus 1488 "discovery" and certainly provided Columbus with many of the captains of his fleet that found their way there. The Basques were not only leading industrialists, with Bilbao pioneering steel making, but also the first modern bankers in Spain.

Despite repeated invasions the Basques have maintained an identity with their Fueros law and their language. The Fueros was a remarkably progressive medieval law. Revised ion 1526 it was one of the first legal codes to outlaw the use of torture, ban debtors prison, protect citizens from arbitrary arrest and give women more consideration than most mediaval law - for example property rights.

Basque cooking and cuisine is a recurring theme of the book with recipes described in great detail and examples of Basque cuisine, for example on how to cook an eel and avoiding slime secreted from its glands spoiling the dish by plunging it into warm water. Basque eels are exported all over the world.

The promotion of the Basque language , Euskera, is the unifying factor and remains the first goal of the most nationalists. Franco tried to dilute it by drafting many non Basques into the Basque region but with the formation of ETA it became the defining factor of Basqueness. Traditionally an oral language with many dialects it was only in the 20th Century that it became a written language.

Portraits of leading characters are drawn from Jenaro Pildain a master of the pil pil cod dish to nationalists such as Sabino Arana who in 1893 organised public demonstrations declaring Basque nationalism and the poets like Jose Antonio Aguirre

A rich and thought provoking book.

Its the story of the bike and interweaves its rich history with the social impact and a personal mission to build new bike "a talismanic machine that somehow reflects my cycling history and carries my cycling aspirations."

The book is peppered with historical context. In 1815 Mount Tamborain, Indonesia, erupted resulting in the year without the summer and widespread famine. Farmers shot their horses because they could not afford the oats. Inspired by necessity Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbronn conceived the mechanical horse with wheels. The bike was not invented by Leonardo da Vinci as rumoured!

The personal mission involves criss crossing the UK visiting craftsmen to find Brian O'Rourke a 70 year old bike frame builder in "the shrine to the sport of road racing" in his bike shop in the Potteries. Seeking the best craftsmen in the world to build the components he visits Chris King in Portland Oregon to get the headset, aluminium handlebars from Cino Cinelli in Milan, drivetrain from Campagnolo in Vicenza, Italy , wheels built by and ex hippy bike rider, Gravy, from Fairfax , Marin County in the US, with Royce Hubs from Cliff Poulton in Hampshire , England , tyres from Continental in Korpach, Germany and spokes from Sapim in Belgium.

But it is not whizz bang technology - the trips to the manufacturers are "like something out of Willy Wonkers Chocolate Factory" and the characters he meets entertainingly described: "He offered me a hand the size of a tennis racket. Then he broke into a smile the size of the Golden Gate Bridge". His descriptions of the development of the bike and bike racing over the last couple of hundred years are evocative
" A simple bike ride could still rattle a man's molars free."

An original, broadminded approach to biking which provides a refreshing alternative to the conventional trip description or autobiography. You don't have to be a biker to enjoy this one. But if you are a biker it makes you want to build your own!

This vivid, eloquent and heart rending description of the upbringing of a Muslim woman is powerful, compulsive reading.
First in Somalia, then Ethiopia, then Riyhad but mainly in Kenya, the restricted, dependent way of life, the rote learning of the Quran, female circumcision, regular brutal beatings of women, arranged marriages and honour killing of girls who disobey their fathers or husbands are described as normal. But conversely, the strong sense of family responsibility and clan loyalties enable her family to cope with the civil war and exile whilst her father stays in Ethiopia organising the opposition to Siad Barre.
Somalia in the 1970's is a country being torn apart by civil war between the clans - the Osman Mahamud, Isaq, Darod and Hawiye. The bureaucracy is completely corrupt and spends much of its time scheming how to "transfer" funds i.e. steal them. The blatant cynicsm with which development aid was greeted should make international development workers stop and think. The subsequent rise of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood movement in the 1980's is ascribed in part to the honesty and trust that believers generate in financial transactions, schools and food relief, in contrast to the endemic corruption; and in part to the huge financial support for fundamentalism from Saudi Arabia.
As an independent minded, yet orthodox religious girl Ayaan could not accept her father's arrangement of a marriage for her and so she escaped to Holland where the tolerance and freedom for women and the fairness and honesty of the society made her question her faith. Her gradual conversion from strict hidjab clad black robed fundamentalist Muslim faith to atheism is very sensitively described.
But from the frying pan into the fire. Her rise to a political star and the making of a film about her experiences as a Muslim women brought about the murder of Theo Van Gogh (the filmmaker) and a fatwah on her. Forced to leave the strong friendships she has made in Holland she is exiled to the USA. But there is not a hint of self pity from this amazing strong character.
A powerful and thought provoking book.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and books are normally written with the benefit of hindsight. But this account of the response to the catastrophic events in 2008 of as they unfold, portrays the uncertainty and momentousness of the decisions made on a day to day basis to prevent world financial meltdown. It provides a gripping, page turning read even for someone unfamiliar with Wall Street.

Sorkin touches on the seeds to the disaster - the deregulation of the banks in the late 1990's. the push to increase home ownership which encouraged lax mortgage standards, historically low interest rates. which created the liquidity bubble, and the system of Wall street compensation that rewarded short - term risk taking. They all came together to create the perfect storm.

The account of the battle to save Wall Street interweaves the responses and actions of many of the leading players from Hank Paulson of the US Treasury, Tim Geithner President of the New York Federal Reserve, to CEO's, legal advisors and other key characters in the 9 major banks, and the key insurance and mortgage companies. With the sheer number and complexity of the simultaneous negotiations, this could lead to total confusion, but Sorbin manages to provide a comprehendable picture of this complex situation.

The book portrays the idiosyncracies and personal agendas of the people leading the financial institutions as they respond to the financial hurricane. After the decisions of the Federal officials, Paulson, Geithner and Bernanke, to intervene directly with Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae and their underwriting the toxic assets of Bear Stearns to allow Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan to buy the first investment bank casualty, the pressure was on them not to bail out the fat cat bankers but to allow the market to find a solution to the investment banks' predicaments. When the British FSA refused to allow Barclay to buy Lehmans and expose itself to risk associated with its toxic assets, the deal negotiated by CEO, Bob Diamond, collapsed and Lehman's had to go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This decision was followed by the rescue of AIG by US Federal Bank's underwriting of its merger with the Bank of America.

Sorkin vividly describes the "policy by deal" that followed Lehman's bankruptcy and AIG bail out as the investment banks frantically negotiated major mergers or refinancing deals, often within the space of 24 hours, to avoid running out of cash as the financial system ground to a halt. And he describes Paulson, Geithner and Bernanke's decisions, perhaps belatedly to introduce fiscal measures through TARP, through opening up lines of credit and direct investment by the USA government in the 9 major banks.

The book provides food for thought on whether the battle averted disaster or whether it was a series of decisive but reactive actions.

This book well deserves its shortlisting for the Samuel Johnson non fiction book of the year 2010.

This is more than a travel book about Sara Wheeler's extended visits to Chukotka and other Russian territories, Alaska, Artic Norway, Canada, Greenland, Svarlbard (Spitzbergen) and Lappland.

The Arctic of this book is not only a disintegrating home to native people's, nor just the source of 25 % of the world óil reserves and much of its mineral wealth, nor just a cauldron of scientific investigation into global climate change, nor just a massive ice shield with its own history of endeavour and of popular reporting of these endeavours, nor just a source of inspiration to writers, artists, filmmakers and naturalists. It is all of these framed in lucid, colourful, personal and yet unsentimental style.

Her experiences of her visits, sometimes accompanied by one of her children, are enriched by extensive reference to the history and literature about the region. The stories about the people she meets and the characters that are important in Artic history leave you gagging for more. She very often stays for extended periods of time at scientific bases or at oil depots or travels with truckers on the ice roads or with nomadic people - she describes attempting to breast feed her baby whilst it was strapped to a reindeer like the Sami do. She empathises with those characters that were sympathetic to their environment - writers, like Mowat - film makers, like Flahery - atmopheric scientists, like Jack Dibb - artists like Rockwell Kent - or people who mapped the ice cap, like Gino Watkins who pioneered the jet refuelling stations in Greenland or James Rae of NorthWest Passage fame. She respects some recognised explorers like Nansen but has no time for those who set out "to conquer the artic like the fame seeking Peary or the arrogant , incompetent British admiral Franklin.

She pulls no punches in describing the disintegration and degradadation of the native culture throughout the Arctic Region. "Wherever the state intervened in the Canadian Actic, which was almost everywhere, the mechanics of the system moved in an aritrary , aimless fashion like the hands of clock disconnected from the face. When it comes to protecting Arctic people, no other country tried so hard , agonised so much and stumbled so many times as the Canadians. Russia had not agonised. It had effectively kicked the Chutchi onto the rubbish heap of history. America had thrown money at the problem".

She is strong on the theory of unintended consequences. "Watkins thought he was doing right (in pioneering crucial refuelling stations for US-Europen airroutes in Greenland), but technology failed to reveal what was going to happen when hundreds of thousands of contrails disspolved in Arctic skies - just as it failed to reveal that the nurses accompanying X-ray machines bought killer viruses (to the Innuit) with them or that prophulactic tooth extractoin would lead to a a full scale evacuation of a Canadian scintific base".

She returns again and again to the theme that conditions in the Artic that could lead to major climate change were more significant than she expected. And she reports extensively on the race to extract natural resources of oil and minerals that continues to dominate the Agenda. Her recounts the work of many of the individuals in the large numbers scientific teams active throughout the Arctic. The motivation of the scientists, it should be added, is qualified by Jack Dibb working on the impact of bromine oxide and other halogens on the troposhere ( following the work proving the impact of fluorocarbons on the stratosphere) when he is quoted as saying "This one could make us famous if its true".

But essentially it is a masterpeice of Arctic record in the 21st century.

This book was highly recommended to me. But initially it promised to disappoint - a standard format murder mystery with a limited number of potential murderers to choose from. Furthermore I could not relate to the characters - the main character, Blomquist, was successfully seduced by a series of beautiful, intelligent women - all the baddies had no redeeming features and the brilliant heroine was totally unsociable.

But the book gripped me. It became more than a who dunn it. It brutally gave the impression of a Swedish society where women abuse, rape and very low levels of conviction rates of the perpetrators prevailed. It alluded to the possibility of the heroine suffering from Asperger's syndrome. It developed more interesting issues like the responsibility of the press and the quality of financial journalism.
But mainly it was a page turner.

There is no doubt that Robert Winston is a polymath - an eminent fertility doctor who would have aspired to be a neurosurgeon if he had his time again.
The book starts slowly with rather complex descriptions of the discovery of the actions of various regions of the brain, the chemical neurotransmitters that carry nerve impulses round the brain and the specific roles of the most common - glutamate, dopamine, adrenalin, endorphins, serotonin and oxytocin. But Robert Winston has a way of holding the interest through technical sections by telling stories which bring the scientists and their trials and tribulations to life.
He describes the claims of the right /left side advocates but regards them as an oversimplification. Indeed one of the major themes of the book is the theory of the plasticity of the brain and its ability to develop with neurons repeatedly fired on a task strengthening their connection and increasing their supply of neurotransmitter so it becomes easier for them to fire in the future - or to you and me practice makes perfect.
From how the brain works he moves to how emotions are stimulated. The consensus among neuroscientists is that there are four primary emotions - fear, anger, sadness and joy. Some claim perhaps three more but Winston reckons that surprise, disgust and contempt are complex combinations of the primary emotions. Smiling, laughter, hoping and fear are investigated and the widespread desire of all humans to change moods through the use of nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, ecstasy and LSD.
But I found the fascination of the book grew as he moved onto the necessity for human interaction (solitary confinement is a very effective torture) and how and why, from an evolutionary standpoint, people interacted through love and lying and the fine tuning required of the brain to make continual choices based on the need to survive and reproduce.
I do not think I spoil the enjoyment of the book by revealing that the uplifting conclusion to the book is that we all have extraordinary abilities inside us and the plasticity of the brain throughout life gives us all have the opportunity to develop these abilities.
For my taste it is not Winston's best book, it is not a page turner but it continually drew me back to look round the next corner of the brain.