Book Bits: 12 July 2025
● Should the World Fear China?
Zhou Bo
Summary via publisher (Hurst)
For Washington, China is a strategic competitor: the only country with both the will to reshape the world order and, increasingly, the means to do so. For Europe, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a ‘partner for cooperation, an economic competitor and a systemic rival’. For NATO, it is a ‘decisive enabler’ of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Yet Beijing’s image is far more positive in the Global South, of which the PRC considers itself a part. Zhou Bo’s essays unpack China’s own view of its role today. The author is a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy and a retired senior colonel in the People’s Liberation Army. China is operating not only in a world becoming less Western, but—more importantly—a West becoming less Western; and the key to its outlook lies in Africa, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific as much as in Europe and the White House. Are Moscow and Beijing really so closely aligned? Where are Sino-Indian relations headed? Is China a new Cold War foe for the West? Or will economic ties inevitably bring the two powers closer together?
● We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate
Michael Grunwald
Q&A with author via The Miama Herald
Q: Your book chronicles how demand for food and land to grow it on is destroying global ecosystems. In Miami, we have the opposite, urban sprawl consuming the Redland agriculture area. Which is worse?
A: It’s funny. Most of us live in the cities and suburbs, and this is where we live and work and go to school and play on the planet but the developed area of the planet is about one in every 100 acres. By 2050, it might be 2% of the planet. But agriculture is two of every five acres, it’s 40%. So people talk about urban sprawl, and I’m not saying it’s not an issue, but agricultural sprawl is, like, 40 times bigger. And we know this, right? When you take a cross-country flight, and you look out, you see all those squares and circles. You can see that the natural planet is becoming an agricultural planet, and that’s what my book’s about.
● Mastering Private Equity: Transformation via Venture Capital, Minority Investments and Buyouts–2nd ed.
Claudia Zeisberger, et al.
Summary via publisher (Wiley)
Mastering Private Equity, the definitive guide to private equity (PE) since 2017, has been fully updated to reflect the current state of the industry, the latest market data, and the innovation reshaping the private capital industry. Written for a professional audience, the Second Edition of Mastering Private Equity is a valuable and unique reference for investors, finance professionals, students, and business owners looking to engage with PE firms or invest in PE funds.
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