An entertaining and instructive blend of economic theory and personal remembrance.
Irwin, an agricultural economist, with Peterson, a veteran university writer, recollects a risk-taking youth and defends futures market speculation.
Irwin grew up on his father’s farm in Bagley, Iowa. Before he became a farmer, Irwin’s father managed grain elevators, and as a result he always keenly followed the agricultural markets. From him, the author inherited a deep intellectual interest in the workings of the market, particularly in the category of agricultural futures (“I was a market nerd from a young age”). He attended Iowa State University—his father planned for him to become a “superfarmer,” but Irwin became fascinated by agricultural economics, a subject in which he would earn a doctorate from Purdue University. Irwin tells three parallel stories in this eclectic memoir: his wild risk-taking as a youth, the nature of futures speculation as a kind of rationally managed embracing of risk, and his own experience as an agricultural economist defending futures speculation. This last element forms the core of the memoir: As a counterpoint to the popular caricature of futures speculators as “villains” who befoul the market through their “sinister manipulations,” he accessibly presents them as necessary and largely helpful participants in the market. “Futures markets are not mere curiosities, for they sit at the very heart of our economy. They function as a critical nerve center for the market economy and are important to everyone. Futures markets set the prices for some of the most important commodities in our global economy…” In the main, Irwin convincingly argues, they assist the market in the management and distribution of risk, inject much-needed liquidity, and, since they must contend with considerable exposure to financial danger, they enhance the market’s overall rationality. Irwin’s outline of the futures market is remarkably clear and should be comprehensible even for those with a modest background in economics. The text is written in an engaging, personal, anecdotal style that adds a human element to material that, by its very nature, threatens to become academically dry; it’s hard to imagine a more enjoyably readable book about the subject.
An entertaining and instructive blend of economic theory and personal remembrance.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987642474
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ceres Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.
In this debut memoir, Bahamian millionaire Bastian offers insight into building a business.
The author was a millionaire by the time he was 19, an impressive feat considering he began his working life filling stockpots and rolling napkins in his father’s Nassau restaurant, a locals’ hole-in-the-wall far from the city’s tourist hotels. “In many ways, I started ten steps behind the starting line in a world where opportunities felt few and far between,” writes Bastian in his introduction. A poor student with a gambler’s risk tolerance and a salesman’s eye for an unserved market, the author dropped out of college to launch his own satellite installation business—the first of its kind in the Bahamas—eventually expanding into prepaid phones and other electronics. With this book, Bastian uses his personal experiences to illustrate the steps aspiring entrepreneurs should consider when building their own empires. “My goal isn’t just to tell my story,” he explains; “it’s to provide you with a starting point, a strategy, and the encouragement you need to take your first step toward something bigger.” The book alternates between memoiristic chapters describing the author’s youth and career and instructional chapters outlining the best practices to “become a lion” (his preferred metaphor for a brave, risk-taking captain of industry). From evaluating one’s skill set and choosing a suitable goal to the practicalities of regulation and taxes, Bastian walks the reader through the complicated processes of starting and maintaining a successful enterprise. While much of the advice is of the boilerplate variety, the author offers it with clarity and candor, devoting an entire chapter, for example, on how to fail productively. It is the biographical material that lends his advice unusual weight—Bastian’s stories of flying back and forth between the Bahamas and Miami to personally import satellite dishes are fascinating enough to stand on their own. Readers may be unable to replicate his success, but there is no denying that his tale is inspiring.
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798891882485
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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