The Year in Review (2025)

Good news of the year: See http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/goodnews.html Recommended Books: Johan Norberg: "Peak Human" (2025). The most successful civilizations were the most open (open for cultural, economic and migration exchanges). David Chaffetz: "Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires" William Dalrymple: "The Golden Road - How Ancient India Transformed the World" Dan Wang: "Breakneck - China’s Quest to Engineer the Future". An interesting view of China as a regime of engineers, as opposed to the USA that is run by lawyers. Engineers build whereas lawyers argue. China builds rapidly and nonstop whereas the USA debates whether to build and every four years changes its mind. Robert Sapolsky: "Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will". A simple syllogism: the world is deterministic, therefore there is no free will, therefore we are not responsible for our actions. Sam Harris said it before: free will cannot arise in a deterministic world. Daniel Dennett and others think that it is instead possible. Obviously nobody can prove either side right, but Sapolsky's book makes for an interesting discussion on things that we take for granted like punishment. (I personally think that everything has free will, even stones and leaves, see Free Will is a General Property of the Universe. The problem is that he confuses free will and consciousness, assuming that free will cannot exist without consciousness, but ignores the possibility that conscious free will be just one special case of free will). Glenn Adamson: "A Century of Tomorrows - How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present". A survey of scientific, religious, and literary "prophets" that tried to predict the future. Anne Stevenson-Yang: "Wild Ride". A concise and cynical account of China's reform era under Deng Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson: "Abundance". An indictment of over-regulation, which impedes progressive change Marc Dunkelman: "Why Nothing Works - Who Killed Progress and How to Bring It Back". An indictment of the progressive ideology in the USA. The USA is now run by a "vetocracy" that allows nearly anyone to stifle progress. Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian: "The Great Transformation: China’s Road From Revolution To Reform". A more expanded view of China's reform era under Deng with emphasis on Mao's fear of a Soviet invasion, which started a rethinking of China's economic strategy way before Deng seized power. After all, it was Mao himself who rehabilitated Deng Xiaoping. Thomas Hertog: "On the Origin of Time - Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory" John Cassidy: "Capitalism and Its Critics - A History, From the Industrial Revolution to AI" Daniel Waldenstrom: "Richer and More Equal - A New History of Wealth in the West". A study that shows how the past century has been marked by more equal wealth, not more inequality. Patrick McGee: "Apple in China - The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company". Apple and China are indispensable partners, one helping the other achieve technological supremacy while the other helping Apple become a trillion-dollar corporation. Apple's investment in Chinese factories could be the single most important factor that helped to modernize China. Zeinab Badawi: "An African History of Africa - From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence". Katherine Stewart: "Money, Lies, and God - Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy". An analysis of the sociopolitical movement that propelled Trump to power. Articles: Click here for many more Events in USA China Europe Indian subcontinent Covid pandemic Latin America Sub-Saharan Africa Arab world and Israel Japan Russia Britain ...others Tech and Science Several records in quantum computing Unitree R1 robot and Figure 03 robot DeepSeek R1 language model Electric cars Hyundai Ioniq 6 and Geely Xinguan AST SpaceMobile BlueBird Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander (first private spacecraft to land successfully on the moon) Vera Rubin Observatory Cinema. Best Films: See http://www.scaruffi.com/cinema/best25.html Best jazz albums: http://www.scaruffi.com/ratings/2025.html Best classical music recordings: Bach: Sonatas for Violin and Continuo - Isabelle Faust pf Kristin von der Goltz vc Kristian Bezuidenhout hpd (Harmonia Mundi) Domenico Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas - Javier Perianes pf (Harmonia Mundi) Monteverdi: Il Sesto Libro de Madrigali - RossoPorpora & Walter Testolin Ligeti Concertos: Isabelle Faust vn, Jean-Frederic Neuburger pf, Les Siecles orchestra conducted by Francois-Xavier Roth (Harmonia Mundi) Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 2 & Britten Cello Sonata - Sheku Kanneh-Mason vc, Sinfonia of London conducted by John Wilson (Decca) Shostakovich: Piano Concertos - Yuja Wang pf, Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andris Nelsons (DG) Dvorak: Piano Quintets - Marc-Andre' Hamelin pf & Takacs Quartet (Hyperion) Brahms: Piano Quartets Nos 2 & 3 - Krystian Zimerman pf, Maria Nowak vn, Katarzyna Budnik va, Yuya Okamoto vc Paganini: 24 Caprices for Solo Violin - Maria Duenas vn (DG) Shostakovich: String Quartets Nos 2, 7 & 10 - Jerusalem Quartet (BIS) Haydn: Symphonies Nos 94, 95, 98 & 99 - Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen with Paavo Jarvi (RCA) Bartok & Ligeti: String Quartets - Marmen Quartet (BIS) Schubert: String Quartet "Death and the Maiden" - Kuss Quartet (Rubicon) Gerald Eckert: Night Falling Best Art Events: Malala Andrialavidr at Palais de Tokyo, Paris "The Book of Marvels - Imagining the Medieval World" at the Morgan Library, New York "Harmony and Dissonance" at the Guggenheim, New York "Anselm Kiefer", Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam "Anselm Kiefer", Nijo Castle, Kyoto "Gerhard Richter", Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris "Yayoi Kusama" at the National Gallery of Victoria "Yayoi Kusama" at Fondation Beyeler, Riehen (Basel), Switzerland "Edvard Munch retrospective", Palazzo Bonaparte, Roma "David Hockney", Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris "Malgorzata Mirga-Tas" - Kunsthaus Bregenz "Wolfgang Tillmans — Nothing Prepared Us for It" at Centre Pompidou, Paris "Wolfgang Tillmans — Weltraum" at Albertinum, Dresden "Art Deco - The Triumph of Modernity", Palazzo Reale, Milano "Philippe Parreno — Voices" at Haus der Kunst, Munich "Rammellzee" - Palais de Tokyo, Paris "Pierre Huyghe" - Punta della Dogana, Venezia "Yuko Mohri" - Artizon Museum, Tokyo "Carl Cheng" - Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia "Caravaggio 2025", Palazzo Barberini, Roma "Wolfgang Tillmans", Centre Pompidou, Paris "Tzunyen Ho", Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong Heroes of the year: Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky Tim Friede, who voluntarily submitted to dozens of bites from venomous snakes over 18 years so that his body generated antibodies that can be used to create a universal antidote US comedian Jimmy Kimmel, a critic of Donald Trump whose television show was suspended after the Trump administration threatened its television network ( Current events)