Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip
by Jim Rogers
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jim RogersEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-12-07
ISBN: 0812967267
Number of pages: 392
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip
Book Review: An engaging but melancholy read
Summary: 4 Stars
Jim Rogers is the guy who started it all for me (a friend lent me his first book, Investment Biker, my sophomore year in college). Investment Biker seemed to create extreme reactions, either loved or hated for its brashness. His follow up, Adventure Capitalist, is more sober and contemplative, though still fun.
The four dominant themes of Adventure Capitalist are bureaucracy, border hazards, untapped potential, and the transient nature of greatness. Country after country shows promise, but opportunity is sadly drowned by mind-numbing red tape and colossal government ineptitude. Again and again there is trouble at the border, and disappointment inevitably follows. The country with a positive border crossing experience, China, is the only one Rogers is wildly bullish on. He sees Shanghai in the year 2004 as analogous to 1904 New York.
With his father's illness as a backdrop, mortality is clearly on Rogers' mind. He refers often to the grand sweep of history, and predicts oblivion for many of the cities and some of the countries he passes through: Timbuktu, once great, now fading into nothing. Russia and Indonesia, countries dissolving into chaos. Saudi Arabia, reverting back to sand dunes centuries hence. Back in the United States, even the glitter and glitz of Vegas simply reminds Rogers of Ozymandias. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, nothing gold can stay. In the long run he's right, of course, but in the short run it's unclear what his message is, other than emphasizing the inevitability of change.
Rogers' views on foreign aid to Africa and NGOs, backed up by frustrating firsthand experience, were particularly eye opening. His "Africa plan" makes a lot of sense, and it's sad to think first world countries are only making things worse for the third world with their current ham-fisted efforts.
After the journey ends, we get a glimpse, or rather a written speech, detailing the big picture--the Jim Rogers macro view. Much of the world is still drowning in red tape, and America is slowly sinking into the muck. Buy China, buy commodities, and buy into war zones at the first sign of an olive branch.
With the birth of his first child, there is more enthusiasm in the last two sentences than the last twenty pages. It's almost as if he were resigning himself to a humdrum existence, the grand adventure over and done, only to discover that being a father is a new adventure all over again. Cheers Jim.
Summary of Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip
Drive . . . and grow rich!The bestselling author of Investment Biker is back from the ultimate road trip: a three-year drive around the world that would ultimately set the Guinness record for the longest continuous car journey. In Adventure Capitalist, legendary investor Jim Rogers, dubbed ?the Indiana Jones of finance? by Time magazine, proves that the best way to profit from the global situation is to see the world mile by mile. ?While I have never patronized a prostitute,? he writes, ?I know that one can learn more about a country from speaking to the madam of a brothel or a black marketeer than from meeting a foreign minister.?
Behind the wheel of a sunburst-yellow, custom-built convertible Mercedes, Rogers and his fiancée, Paige Parker, began their ?Millennium Adventure? on January 1, 1999, from Iceland. They traveled through 116 countries, including many where most have rarely ventured, such as Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Angola, Sudan, Congo, Colombia, and East Timor. They drove through war zones, deserts, jungles, epidemics, and blizzards. They had many narrow escapes.
They camped with nomads and camels in the western Sahara. They ate silkworms, iguanas, snakes, termites, guinea pigs, porcupines, crocodiles, and grasshoppers.
Best of all, they saw the real world from the ground up?the only vantage point from which it can be truly understood?economically, politically, and socially.
Here are just a few of the author?s conclusions:
? The new commodity bull market has started.
? The twenty-first century will belong to China.
? There is a dramatic shortage of women developing in Asia.
? Pakistan is on the verge of disintegrating.
? India, like many other large nations, will break into several countries.
? The Euro is doomed to fail.
? There are fortunes to be made in Angola.
? Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are a scam.
? Bolivia is a comer after decades of instability, thanks to gigantic amounts of natural gas.
Adventure Capitalist is the most opinionated, sprawling, adventurous journey you?re likely to take within the pages of a book?the perfect read for armchair adventurers, global investors, car enthusiasts, and anyone interested in seeing the world and understanding it as it really is.
From the Hardcover edition.
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