Selected news analysis and commentary/opinion pieces, mostly written for Reuters and Reuters Breakingviews.
I just finished “Agency,” William Gibson’s latest, 10 days or so ago and the ending still resonates in my imagination. Well worth the meticulous and fascinating buildup. It’s a worthy sequel to “The Peripheral,” and, like that novel, very much about the present day, however richly the future/alternative worlds are imagined. I reviewed “The Peripheral” back in the day. I’m pleased to see much of it holds up for “Agency” too.
I fear my 1990 Reuters piece (as printed here in the L.A. Times) was prescient, sadly, about the mental fallout of El Salvador’s civil war. May other warring and post-warring nations do better.
The world is ever more connected via the internet, from cars and power grids to home appliances and toys. That means ever more things are dangerously hackable, security expert Bruce Schneier writes in “Click Here to Kill Everybody.” The title is hyperbolic, but not by much. In some ways, the attack of the killer fridges has already begun. Here’s my review.
Mexico and the U.S. share complex, ever-deeper ties that contradict Donald Trump’s hostile rhetoric, Andrew Selee writes in “Vanishing Frontiers.” Bicultural businesses, movies and even co-hosting soccer’s 2026 World Cup are better signposts to the future than nationalist rants. Read my review.
My review of Michael Reid’s excellent “Forgotten Continent: A History of the New Latin America.”
Dictators and demagogues have come and gone; progress in the region has been impressive. Still, rule of law and effective institutions still lack, Michael Reid writes in “Forgotten Continent.” That makes the next steps toward prosperity harder.
Reposting this 2012 piece I wrote on how people of left and right can talk to each other, and the value of dissent.
My column on the passing of Fidel Castro.
The charismatic Cuban leader resembled other paternalistic caudillos of right and left in his outsized ego, which ultimately stymied his people. Cubans, like other Latin Americans, need institutions more than saviors like Fidel. Venezuela’s leaders are another example.
In “Brazillionaires,” Alex Cuadros explores Latin America’s biggest economy through its wealthiest citizens, whose fortunes he tracked as a reporter. It’s a tale of boom, bust and back-scratching among moguls and politicos that sheds a telling light on the nation’s current woes. Read my review.
“Narconomics” by Tom Wainwright is both an extended black joke and a hard-headed analysis of the drug trade as a business (almost) like any other. A largely persuasive case for legalization, and funny to boot. Read my review.
Financiers like to compare their negotiations to military strategy. Yet the art of the deal matters far more when those talking also kill. Jonathan Powell’s “Terrorists at the Table” is a primer like few others, by a worldly ex-diplomat of stubborn hope. It’s also darkly funny. Here’s my review.