{"id":44,"date":"2011-07-17T02:30:07","date_gmt":"2011-07-17T02:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/?p=44"},"modified":"2011-07-17T02:30:07","modified_gmt":"2011-07-17T02:30:07","slug":"book-review-adapt-by-tim-harford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/2011\/07\/book-review-adapt-by-tim-harford\/","title":{"rendered":"Book review: Adapt, by Tim Harford"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Please note I am not an expert in the topics covered by this book; rather, my perspective is that of an interested lay reader.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure, by Tim Harford (2011):<\/strong> At the very top of the cover of my edition of Adapt, a blurb proclaims, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tim Harford could well be Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Malcolm Gladwell\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, and that is a very apt analogy to describe this book. Harford is an economist and Financial Times columnist, but here he tackles themes that reach well outside the business world: open-mindedness, flexibility, innovation, resilience. Similarly to Gladwell, the book cites a wide range of examples: the US Army in Iraq (used to illustrate organisational design\/hierarchy); contests such as the Ansari X-Prize (encouraging innovation); randomised trials in development aid (decision-making based on evidence); nuclear power stations and the financial sector (how to engineer systems for resilience), and more. And similarly to Gladwell, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s written in a lively, popular style. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve enjoyed Harford\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writing since I read his earlier <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0040JHNR0\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=petersacom-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373&amp;creativeASIN=B0040JHNR0\">The Undercover Economist<\/a>, which used economics to explain everyday questions such as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153why does my coffee cost so much?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, while I was finishing university, and this book didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t disappoint me. I had a passing familiarity with some of the topics discussed and thus didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t learn anything radically new, but I <em>was<\/em> able to learn more about those issues (and pick up some useful trivia), while being alternately inspired, depressed, and entertained. Well worth a look.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0374100969\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=petersacom-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373&amp;creativeASIN=0374100969\">You can buy Adapt from Amazon here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please note I am not an expert in the topics covered by this book; rather, my perspective is that of an interested lay reader. &nbsp; Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure, by Tim Harford (2011): At the very top &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/2011\/07\/book-review-adapt-by-tim-harford\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behaviour","category-reviews","category-societies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}