Interviews & Reviews

The Caribbean island nation of Cuba is famous for its pristine beaches, warm weather, and multicultural society, but very little is known about its early history. In fact, the last book that covered the island’s history during the 16th and 17th centuries was published in 1916.  Before the arri...

The four-decade long and rapid rise of China has been nothing but a miracle, increasingly viewed as an alternative model of economic growth and development.  Once the communist nation was struggling to feed its population, lacked basic manufacturing capabilities and was hardly seen as a rival ...

The six-decade-old socialist system has dominated most debates on Cuba. The glaring deficiencies of the socialist approach have widely been reported in the Western media but the revolution has also delivered notable gains and policy successes that are rarely recognized.  In ...

About three centuries ago this nation was ruled by the British monarchy, steeped in extracting excessive rent from every subject under its control. The monopolies granted by the monarchy were so absolute that their tentacles extended to every aspect of people’s lives and dominated every aspect...

Never in the history of mankind was a system of extraction, looting and plunder so perfected as practiced by the British aristocrats in managing occupied India for nearly two centuries. Not only did British aristocrats systematically steal grains from farms often at gun point, confiscate raw m...

Big Tobacco, Big News, Big Banks, Big Oil, Big Stores, Big Motors and now we have Big Data too.  Over the past century, family controlled businesses were the driving force behind our economic system, and over the years that force was either dissipated or undermined by the emergency of big busi...

As long as we need and want products and services that others make or create, globalization is here to stay. Nations have explored the earth to reach other civilizations and at times gone to wars, whether it is for spices, silk or precious metals like gold and silver. Civilizations have been s...

Merely two decades ago, computer games were still just a form of entertainment with primitive graphics, limited storytelling and little interactivity. With the advanced computing, enticing animation and multi-media capabilities, games have since evolved as an addictive medium for many. However...

While gleaming towers, high speed trains and expressways of urban China are well known, there is another China that most of us know very little about. In the last three decades, the rural interior of China has seen a mass exodus of people as factories in coastal regions promise a dream of risi...

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left Russia with economic malaise, rapid inflation and a sharp escalation in foreign debt. Even after the collapse, the Russian Federation, the country with the largest land mass, a population of 143 million and spanning multiple continents with 11 time...

China’s rapid economic development over the past three decades has enabled Beijing to spread its wings abroad, allowing the trading giant to secure its routes to world markets. Most of China’s trade with the rest of the world is through maritime links that connect Chinese ports on the eastern ...

For the last five decades natural gas export has added significant foreign currency to treasuries of the ex-USSR and now Russia. By tapping the vast natural gas fields, Gazprom provides natural gas to more than 70% of homes and industries in Russia. Through the steady development of its distri...

Only a hundred years ago, Russia was just another large country and was neither a powerful nation nor a regional or a super power. However, after World War I, Lenin and then Stalin quickly consolidated resources and focused on building an effective infrastructure that led to the steady rise of...

Viruses may be lethal, but it is the deadly combination of powerful lies, ignorance and fear that eventually kills more people. The flu outbreak in the spring of 1918 rapidly became a pandemic that ended up killing more people in 24 weeks than the HIV virus has killed in as many years. While t...

The 1918 influenza pandemic is widely believed to have originated in Kansas before it gained worldwide reputation as Spanish flu, killing at least 50 million people around the globe including 700,000 Americans. With World War I raging for a fourth year, the U.S. leadership and military unwitti...

Although viral outbreaks have been around for centuries, we still know so little about these giant killers. As people continue to reach the far corners of the world and are increasingly encroaching on more and more wildlife habitats, viral plagues are only going to intensify and become deadlie...

As manufacturing becomes more global, supply chains are becoming increasingly critical. What is more, supply chains are getting elongated with the separation of design and manufacturing from customers and markets. In ...

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China’s growing ability in developing massive infrastructure has helped the country to modernize its rail, port and road network. In the last five decades, China has successfully built a number of large infrastructure projects at home and now increasingly in other countries as well. In ...

Most industries have evolved from the reliance on ethnic trading networks that once dominated, including grain, cotton and gold marketplaces. However, in the diamond and gem industries these networks continue to dominate and thrive to date. Once the domain of a handful of Jewish families in Te...