

Like most books, the most important part is the first 20% of the book. Some parts, like the part about Chinese culture and history, were completely irrelevant and painful to go through (especially for a book that promised to take you through economic cycles, not Confucianism.) The author introduces too much of what he is about to say.įor example, Dalio wrote an entire chapter to present parts I and II, only to give a detailed explanation of these two parts in the subsequent chapters.

The book is too long, too specific at times, and too repetitive. It’s a book every politician in the world should read. It’s a blueprint for the development of an empire, and a manual against its decadence. Pushed by envy, jealousy, and laziness, they make the same mistakes – and so the whole thing starts again, in a never-ending…well, cycle.īecause Ray Dalio shows how history repeats over lifetimes, this book is one of the most important books ever written. Humans have a hard time learning the lessons of their elders. History as a cycle (instead of history as a straight line) is not a farfetched idea.

Because history is a cycle, we can anticipate what’s to come provided we know where we are in the cycle. In fact, it over-delivered.Īfter reading Nassim Taleb’s Incerto, I adopted Taleb’s conclusion that predicting the future was futile because it was too random and too different from the past. I was looking forward to reading the book because it promised a glimpse into the political and economic changes of the future. This order changes every 200 years or so as the leading country loses its power while another one rises.

It explains that at any moment in time, one country is more powerful than all the others and directs the world order. It narrates the rise and fall of countries through an economic and social lens. Principle for Dealing With the Changing World Order is a book written by Ray Dalio.
