BreakOut Nations is the book that i can credit as the one that i have read for the longest period! I had bought this book sometime in 2012 reading about it in a in-flight magazine i guess. The topic of the book was quite curious – travelogue, economics and Business mixed into one.
The core premise of the book is that the easy money and growth of the first decade of the century is over. China would slow down (and to think, the book was written in 2011, and the prediction is eerily true!) and the other BRICS countries are not really in a position to take it up. (Ruchir somewhere went quite conservative with his outlook for his Home Country, India).
The Author, Ruchir is the head of emerging markets for a global investment banking firm and thus this book is a natural extension of his day job. By his own admission he spends a week every month on the streets of some emerging market learning the nuances and the potential growth areas in each.
This book catalogues more than twenty emerging nations and looks at them from a new interesting perspective rather than the same mundane economic parameters like GDP, Per capita, etc. Here, the reader feels like he is travelling together with the author while the country is unravelled.
This book also serves as a quick dossier on each of the emerging economies. The financial, economic and political situation layered with the general culture of the people residing there, all fit into a single chapter makes it for a fun read.
This book serves as the perfect informative speculation into each of the emerging economies helping discover the next unicorn.
Looking forward to reading the author’s latest just published book – The Rise and fall of nations. Hoping that i would not take years to read this one!