What do you think?
Rate this book
Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip
Drive . . . and grow rich!The bestselling author of Investment Biker is back from the ultimate road 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 • 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.
482 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2003
120 people are currently reading
2153 people want to read
About the author
Jim Rogers
90 books228 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
James Beeland Rogers, Jr. is an American investor and author, currently based in Singapore. Rogers is the Chairman of Rogers Holdings and Beeland Interests, Inc. He was the co-founder of the Quantum Fund with George Soros and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index (RICI). He has travelled around the world by motorcycle and car
James Beeland Rogers, Jr. is an American investor and author, currently based in Singapore. Rogers is the Chairman of Rogers Holdings and Beeland Interests, Inc. He was the co-founder of the Quantum Fund with George Soros and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index (RICI). He has travelled around the world by motorcycle and car
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews
December 25, 2018
Jim Rogers is famous Wall Street banker
From this book we can lot of world from his travelling across six continents
The journey in Africa which helps to know lot of information about this continent other than stereotypes information we see in typical media
Though his journey was 17 years ago still lot of information staying relevant
In this book .
From this book we can lot of world from his travelling across six continents
The journey in Africa which helps to know lot of information about this continent other than stereotypes information we see in typical media
Though his journey was 17 years ago still lot of information staying relevant
In this book .
November 2, 2010
I'll admit this is a partial review- I got about a quarter way into the book and then quit, it was so bad. I picked this book up at a used bookstore intrigued by the fact that the guy traveled via modified vehicle through scores of countries where it would be somewhat risky to call attention to yourself. And I'm a free-market guy, so I thought this could be interesting from a business guy's standpoint.
While I have to hand it to him for bravery and enthusiasm for driving a yellow modified 4WD Mercedes through places like Georgia, China, Kazakhstan, etc.... he quickly as an authority became unbearable.
It could be that the financial meltdown and the unmasking of the amoral greediness of the financier community (not all but many) has tainted and jaded my view towards investment bankers and financiers that made it sour. He did publish it in 04 with much of the travels in the late 90's and early aughts, so his ilk hadn't had their mass thrashing/humbling by the media yet. As though they learned anything.
The shame is that there's a lot of good, interesting and useful anecdotes and information but you have to pick it out of the garden of smug, self aggrandizing, mocking, arrogant proclamations he regularly dispenses. Talk about broad brush statements: "China doesn't repress religious pursuits and we went almost EVERYWHERE in China" (capitals mine, but seriously.... EVERYWHERE? It's a gigantic country and there is PLENTY of documentation of repression) "Central Asia is a total disaster", "Prostitutes are the best sources of information in a country". And on and on...... It makes it difficult to tell when he's right and when he's just opining.
He apparently is also a historical (and cocksure) lecturer, happy to show how people such as Attila the Hun and the Hittites have affected a certain region to this very day.
He also continually notes how willing he is to take any adventure on, no matter how gnarly while on the other hand, his fainting, weak wife is unsure, afraid, upset, prissy, etc.... to the point where it starts to reek of misogyny.
If this guy took a humble pill and edited this story with a broader, kinder, more inclusive viewpoint, I'd definitely be interested in what he did. While cheesy, this saying is true: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care".
I finally wearied of his blather and decided that the gems weren't that valuable. Just saw that it's available on audio read by himself. JSM (just shoot me) RECYCLE.
While I have to hand it to him for bravery and enthusiasm for driving a yellow modified 4WD Mercedes through places like Georgia, China, Kazakhstan, etc.... he quickly as an authority became unbearable.
It could be that the financial meltdown and the unmasking of the amoral greediness of the financier community (not all but many) has tainted and jaded my view towards investment bankers and financiers that made it sour. He did publish it in 04 with much of the travels in the late 90's and early aughts, so his ilk hadn't had their mass thrashing/humbling by the media yet. As though they learned anything.
The shame is that there's a lot of good, interesting and useful anecdotes and information but you have to pick it out of the garden of smug, self aggrandizing, mocking, arrogant proclamations he regularly dispenses. Talk about broad brush statements: "China doesn't repress religious pursuits and we went almost EVERYWHERE in China" (capitals mine, but seriously.... EVERYWHERE? It's a gigantic country and there is PLENTY of documentation of repression) "Central Asia is a total disaster", "Prostitutes are the best sources of information in a country". And on and on...... It makes it difficult to tell when he's right and when he's just opining.
He apparently is also a historical (and cocksure) lecturer, happy to show how people such as Attila the Hun and the Hittites have affected a certain region to this very day.
He also continually notes how willing he is to take any adventure on, no matter how gnarly while on the other hand, his fainting, weak wife is unsure, afraid, upset, prissy, etc.... to the point where it starts to reek of misogyny.
If this guy took a humble pill and edited this story with a broader, kinder, more inclusive viewpoint, I'd definitely be interested in what he did. While cheesy, this saying is true: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care".
I finally wearied of his blather and decided that the gems weren't that valuable. Just saw that it's available on audio read by himself. JSM (just shoot me) RECYCLE.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 6, 2016
Not sure about this one...Rogers strikes me as a Wall-Street-wealthy know-it-all retiree on a worldwide joyride, ignoring his "best advice" about investing - know what you're buying, and know it cold - at every turn. Prancing through country after country in his custom yellow Mercedes, he rips off advice to governments about how to fix their problems as though he knows of what he speaks. That he doesn't is made abundantly clear in his pre-the-creation-of-the-euro pronouncement that the euro would come to dominate the world currency landscape and assume supremacy over the dollar, which of course it hasn't even come close to doing. I'll reserve final judgment for the end, but I will now read his views in the financial press with a much more jaundiced eye.
February 23, 2016
Another entertaining romp around the world with Mr. Rogers. I am writing these words 12 years after reading the book, but I still recall it an an enjoyable if not informative read.
August 3, 2025
Eenvoudige, maar duidelijke analyse op basis van on the field waarnemingen. Uitgebrachte voorspelling van hegemonie door china (ook al in investment biker) heeft ondertussen zojn waarde bewezen
En ondertussen ook een erg boeiend reisverhaal
En ondertussen ook een erg boeiend reisverhaal
August 13, 2020
A rather radical effort to understand how to make money in the capital markets all over the world.
June 15, 2020
My notes from 2006: "economics biographical - weak ending"
March 7, 2024
Didn't like it, but has a couple of redeeming features. 3.5/10
A tiny bit of grace *could* be given that this was written from 2000-02, so I won't berate him for doubting India's economic growth, but some of his predictions were really egregious, especially since he never footnotes or sources anything. Not even talking about his endless optimism regarding the sclerotic mafia-state of China, but more so how he takes a 2.5 year trip around the world and devotes barely a paragraph to Nigeria, one of the fastest growing nations in the world and hubs of sub-Saharan Africa (which he oddly refers to as 'black Africa' throughout despite his venom for apartheid South Africa).
There's honestly too much in here for me to get into - I worked, studied and lived in China from 2012-14 so while I was inspired by him years ago to do that, my time there was eye-opening in that it was immensely negative - so I'll just cut it short that he is the definition of everything wrong with libertarians: nearly zero values outside of making money, F nearly everything else.
He correctly, and ahead of time, deduces that South Korea is going to go through a massive population filter since property prices are going up, and materialism and feminism are on the ascendency there. So what's his response? He wants to invest in birth control manufacturers there as Koreans demographically go extinct. I mean, I don't expect him to save Koreans as a random White Boomer from Alabama, but come on, man.
Speaking of, despite being a WASP from Alabama, he has this huge grudge against Russia. I get that visiting Russia as it was exiting its perestroika era of the 90s is depressing, but he legitimately hates the country. He pines about it breaking up into several different countries like he's a Eastern European bureaucrat in NATO, and is oblivious to how western capitalists like himself helped make Russia a hell-hole in the 90s. He even stans for Chechens at the height of that bloody war, claiming none of their terrorist acts are real and are all coordinated by Putin! Was very surreal to read this early of an iteration of "Putin Derangement Syndrome" (for lack of a better term). He really is an incurious man, who traveled the world as a flex and to confirm his own biases.
His Africa section is surprisingly wanting for someone so enamored with Blacks that he calls apartheid South Africa (a decade dead since publication of his book) numerous epithets like "the greatest evil" throughout (for far longer segments than anything he mentioned about Nigeria lol) when he could have easily used the more accurate "backwards" or "behind the times." I mean I don't expect him to be right-wing, but to call a White-minority government in South Africa "evil" when he glosses over the Black African massacre of Arabs and Persians in Zanzibar upon decolonization? Come on. Hilariously, in his South Africa bit he is genuinely befuddled how much the country has fallen in the decade since the ANC took power and he can't figure out why LOL it's amazing to me how someone could make so much money on the stock market through their observation skills and yet be this dense on why South Africa is failing since a bunch of Zulu communist terrorists took over the country that invented open heart surgery.
Here are a couple howlers: "The younger the population of a country, the more open to change it is. A young population embraces change the way an older population reveres the past." Jim Rogers has apparently never read The Fourth Turning, about generational dynamics occurring in four predictable cycles, and lives in the eternal boomer mindset of every generation being like him: godless hedonists who care only for material things and hate the 'outdated' past.
Also, literally every other country - despite being a newlywed traveling with his wife - he always finds a way to pigeonhole in prostitute stories as he "runs across them" in his travels. Uh-huh, run across.
The other howler is on page 132 and goes on for 2 pages against passports and borders (!) existing, but honestly, he goes on shorter pro-migration rants throughout the whole book. Genuinely curious if the migrant waves of 2015 in Europe and more recently in the US have changed his mind on his ridiculously naïve and dangerous view of open borders, but his thoughts on it in 2000-02 are insane. His thinking is nearly identical to Obama, Biden, and the rest of the Democratic Party: every unwashed mass that finds its way to America (or any Western country) can and should be let in because they will "add value to the economy" (i.e. suppress wages of native citizens) and are actually budding entrepreneurs because they sell oranges or flowers in the middle of the freeway. Would love for this man to be confronted with the reality of his mass migration dream, but he has ensconced himself in Singapore of all places (Disneyland with the death penalty, strict immigration points system since the 1990s), funny how actual preferences are revealed!
Anyway...this review is too long already so I'll get to the least bad parts (3). His admiration and love for his father is genuine, who passed away in Alabama during this trip, so those very human father-son vignettes, his last chapter which talks about general economic trends in the US, and his dunking on NGOs throughout the book as corrupt, useless, and even harmful to development.
The last part is incredibly ironic since he's the co-founder of the (George) Soros Management Fund. He's with George on mass migration to displace native Western populations and to make more bucks for himself, but he hates George's NGOs. Oh well, just another in-fight on the left between a left-wing liberal and a classical liberal like Rogers, who is happy to destroy the world that helped make him a success.
A tiny bit of grace *could* be given that this was written from 2000-02, so I won't berate him for doubting India's economic growth, but some of his predictions were really egregious, especially since he never footnotes or sources anything. Not even talking about his endless optimism regarding the sclerotic mafia-state of China, but more so how he takes a 2.5 year trip around the world and devotes barely a paragraph to Nigeria, one of the fastest growing nations in the world and hubs of sub-Saharan Africa (which he oddly refers to as 'black Africa' throughout despite his venom for apartheid South Africa).
There's honestly too much in here for me to get into - I worked, studied and lived in China from 2012-14 so while I was inspired by him years ago to do that, my time there was eye-opening in that it was immensely negative - so I'll just cut it short that he is the definition of everything wrong with libertarians: nearly zero values outside of making money, F nearly everything else.
He correctly, and ahead of time, deduces that South Korea is going to go through a massive population filter since property prices are going up, and materialism and feminism are on the ascendency there. So what's his response? He wants to invest in birth control manufacturers there as Koreans demographically go extinct. I mean, I don't expect him to save Koreans as a random White Boomer from Alabama, but come on, man.
Speaking of, despite being a WASP from Alabama, he has this huge grudge against Russia. I get that visiting Russia as it was exiting its perestroika era of the 90s is depressing, but he legitimately hates the country. He pines about it breaking up into several different countries like he's a Eastern European bureaucrat in NATO, and is oblivious to how western capitalists like himself helped make Russia a hell-hole in the 90s. He even stans for Chechens at the height of that bloody war, claiming none of their terrorist acts are real and are all coordinated by Putin! Was very surreal to read this early of an iteration of "Putin Derangement Syndrome" (for lack of a better term). He really is an incurious man, who traveled the world as a flex and to confirm his own biases.
His Africa section is surprisingly wanting for someone so enamored with Blacks that he calls apartheid South Africa (a decade dead since publication of his book) numerous epithets like "the greatest evil" throughout (for far longer segments than anything he mentioned about Nigeria lol) when he could have easily used the more accurate "backwards" or "behind the times." I mean I don't expect him to be right-wing, but to call a White-minority government in South Africa "evil" when he glosses over the Black African massacre of Arabs and Persians in Zanzibar upon decolonization? Come on. Hilariously, in his South Africa bit he is genuinely befuddled how much the country has fallen in the decade since the ANC took power and he can't figure out why LOL it's amazing to me how someone could make so much money on the stock market through their observation skills and yet be this dense on why South Africa is failing since a bunch of Zulu communist terrorists took over the country that invented open heart surgery.
Here are a couple howlers: "The younger the population of a country, the more open to change it is. A young population embraces change the way an older population reveres the past." Jim Rogers has apparently never read The Fourth Turning, about generational dynamics occurring in four predictable cycles, and lives in the eternal boomer mindset of every generation being like him: godless hedonists who care only for material things and hate the 'outdated' past.
Also, literally every other country - despite being a newlywed traveling with his wife - he always finds a way to pigeonhole in prostitute stories as he "runs across them" in his travels. Uh-huh, run across.
The other howler is on page 132 and goes on for 2 pages against passports and borders (!) existing, but honestly, he goes on shorter pro-migration rants throughout the whole book. Genuinely curious if the migrant waves of 2015 in Europe and more recently in the US have changed his mind on his ridiculously naïve and dangerous view of open borders, but his thoughts on it in 2000-02 are insane. His thinking is nearly identical to Obama, Biden, and the rest of the Democratic Party: every unwashed mass that finds its way to America (or any Western country) can and should be let in because they will "add value to the economy" (i.e. suppress wages of native citizens) and are actually budding entrepreneurs because they sell oranges or flowers in the middle of the freeway. Would love for this man to be confronted with the reality of his mass migration dream, but he has ensconced himself in Singapore of all places (Disneyland with the death penalty, strict immigration points system since the 1990s), funny how actual preferences are revealed!
Anyway...this review is too long already so I'll get to the least bad parts (3). His admiration and love for his father is genuine, who passed away in Alabama during this trip, so those very human father-son vignettes, his last chapter which talks about general economic trends in the US, and his dunking on NGOs throughout the book as corrupt, useless, and even harmful to development.
The last part is incredibly ironic since he's the co-founder of the (George) Soros Management Fund. He's with George on mass migration to displace native Western populations and to make more bucks for himself, but he hates George's NGOs. Oh well, just another in-fight on the left between a left-wing liberal and a classical liberal like Rogers, who is happy to destroy the world that helped make him a success.
August 30, 2012
Listened to this one with Ron, who had long ago read the author's "Investment Biker" book. We both liked this book for the most part. I found that I was wanting more from it...the travel and his insight into different and exotic locales was interesting but far too abbreviated. I kept wondering if I was listening to an abridged copy (I don't think so).
His opinion of Greenspan was shockingly blunt and harsh - perhaps the first time I've heard anyone slam the man so directly.
I'd like to know what "sure thing" investments he's made in today's market and how much his impressions may have changed since this book was published.
In all, I liked that the book mixed his adventure travel with investing insights.
His opinion of Greenspan was shockingly blunt and harsh - perhaps the first time I've heard anyone slam the man so directly.
I'd like to know what "sure thing" investments he's made in today's market and how much his impressions may have changed since this book was published.
In all, I liked that the book mixed his adventure travel with investing insights.
September 13, 2010
About 10 years old, but a really fun read about a cool trip around the world. Interesting insights from an investor about a lot of different countries.
September 18, 2018
A bit dated now but still interesting, educational and absorbing. About far more than investing.
Jim Rogers is a big picture guy.
Jim Rogers is a big picture guy.
June 25, 2020
The book that started it all for me. I read it while traveling one summer at University.
August 28, 2020
Read this in 2020 and many of the observations still seem relevant. A great travel book with a lot to learn from it especially the importance of adventure.
December 10, 2023
The book that altered my life to finance
This is part of my re-reading portion of the year. From my previous review:
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s a beautifully written book about the journey of the author, the Indiana Jones of Finance himself, through 116 countries in 3 years, which landed him in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Within the adventurous journey, he encountered the mafias in Russia, nearly died in a blizzard in Iceland and was held captive by rebel soldiers in an African war-zone. An amazing eye-opener book, it also provides us with in-depth analysis on the broad political-economic-and-social condition of each country that he visited. All of this combined with vast knowledge of history, world current affairs and his legendary investment analysis; which inspired me to alter my life to finance, start reading history and follow world current affairs.
I can’t believe that such amazing journey could occur, and so diverse knowledge can be written in a single book. But that’s the beauty of this book, and that’s why it’s number one in my personal chart.
You know that saying you never step in the same river twice, or more relevantly, you never read the same book twice? This is what happened when I read this book for the second time. Please bare with me, this is going to be a very long book review.
The first time I read this book was in 2005 when I was a marketing student aiming to get work at the advertising industry when I graduate. Back then I only read business and self-help books, having no clue about the financial market and what's history (a subject about old stuffs) got to do with the modern world. But then this book changed my entire worldview.
Through the account of his travels and direct observations on the ground, combined with his deep knowledge on history (Rogers studied history at Yale), his know-how on world politics (he did his masters on Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford), as well as his legendary analysis on the world market (he was, after all, George Soros' partner at the Quantum Fund), the book shows the vast world through multiple lenses that go beyond the usual cultural, religious, and tourism perspectives, and through a deeply personal interactions between him and the locals that he met along the way. And on top of all of this, Rogers is an old-fashioned traditional man from Demopolis, Alabama, who was raised by his father with good values and taught to be a gentleman, hence the moral compass he inserted every now and then in his journey.
The book also teaches us about the importance of planning, on taking chances and calculating our odds, on changing course if the original plan goes south real quick, and the risk management plan in case unexpected danger arises, exactly the traits - I later found out - needed to be a successful investor.
But the traits that astonished me the most was Rogers' real-time knowledge on the market, such as the US Dollar exchange rate when he tried to buy the local currencies, or knows why the price of Timber is dirt cheap in Botswana for such a good quality product, or why he wanted to buy a property in Darwin and Uruguay, why he is reluctant to put his money in Turkey even though it was booming, and many more investment stories as he travelled to the countries in person, including pulling out all of his money from his investments in Argentina after seeing it first-hand the signs that the currency, the economy, and the government are about to collapse (they did, 3 months later). I mean, I thought to myself, who is this guy? And what does he do for a living? Up until then, I was obsessed with the start-up stories of the big companies and their billionaires, I also read almost every entrepreneurial books that I can find, but I have never encountered a person like Jim Rogers before.
This book is actually Rogers' 2nd book. His first book, Investment Biker, is about his other (crazier) trip around the world: a 2-year trip circling the globe riding a motorcycle, which landed him in the first Guinness Book of World Records (the second is this trip) and earned him the nickname "the Indiana Jones of Finance", a book I eventually read when I was doing my masters degree in Finance (after ditching the advertising dream), because I wanted to follow his footsteps.
Skip 18 years later, today I'm working in the financial market, and - as Rogers keep advocating in his books and his interviews - I'm now a big reader of history, I follow world current affairs religiously, and whenever I get the chance I travel to weird places and blend in with the locals, taste all the food and adventures myself.
And now that I understand the world a little bit better compared with when I first read this book in 2005, the book is actually even better to read. Because I understand more of all the contexts that he's talking about, such as the global criminal underworld, the wars happening across the globe, the NGO scams, the weaknesses of the UN, the real function of IMF and World Bank, the troubles at former Soviet satellite states, the hyper-inflations across history, and many more, including more awareness of geography, country-specific issues, all the great places in the world and their stories, the global financial markets, and especially the last chapter which was the most boring part when I first read it, but now turned into the most fascinating conclusion.
But gaining more knowledge in 18 years also means I can now also spot some Austrian school opinions that I grew to disagree with over the years. This is what made me slowly drifted away from following Rogers, where in an interview in the book "Inside the House of Money" by Steven Drobny Rogers acknowledged the Austrian school label would be most fitting for his views, while since I studied finance, history and politics I have grown to agree more with center-left views (almost the total opposite with Rogers').
For instance, in the book Rogers partially blamed the global economic collapse of the 1930s on tariffs, quotas and restrictions on trade, while he failed to mention that the Great Depression was caused by loose restrictions (that the Austrian school advocates) in the Roaring Twenties of 1920s, and that the tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions were actually the necessary responding effects to stop the collapse to get even worse.
He also defended the WTO and its predecessor GATT, but didn't really address the devastating effects they had on countries who had to follow their laissez-faire policies of deregulation, privatization and austerity, regardless of their economic conditions. And nowhere in the book that Rogers tells the story of how Britain and the US really grew from a small nation into a global empire: through tariffs, quota, and trade restrictions, as most clearly described by Cambridge University economist Ha-Joon Chang.
However, re-reading this book provides me with a refreshed perspective on Rogers' views, that reminds me why he was such an influential figure for me as a young adult and for the way I live my life in general (“obsessed” is a strong word, but I eventually read all of his 6 books, read more books that explain his investment style, read and watch every single interview that he’s made, and even sending him an e-mail to invite him to my wedding - he didn’t respond).
And the way he explains about his [Austrian school] views, kind of make sense if you look at it from his point of view, such as his examples of the tariffs on tomatoes, steel, rice, etc. And to be fair, he did say that World Bank and the IMF have derailed from their original purpose when they were created, something that a hardliner Austrian school would never say. So, in a sense, his views is unique and not rigid towards any ideology despite being close to Austrian School.
I also get reminded why this book has been ranked number 1 in my list for so long: because above all, this is a travel adventure story book filled with surprises, bold acts, and incredible cameos. Such as meeting Iceland’s president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, dumping a local currency in a black market in Yugoslavia, encountering belly dancers in Istanbul and Baku, meeting an oligarch in Azerbaijan, got stuck in Uzbekistan when the borders are closed after someone was trying to assassinate the president, eating a snake and turtle in China, eating dog and silk worm in South Korea, eating a horse in Kazakhstan, climbing mount Fuji, became fast friends with a local Russian mafia boss, visiting a Siberian prison, got invited to a lot of strangers' wedding, running a Russian marathon, getting married at the banks of River Thames London, and visiting a Spanish winery where Magellan went to before he set sail.
In the second part of the book, we would find them crossing the Sahara desert, witnessing African butt dance in an extravagant village wedding near the Senegal-Mali border, visiting the fabled city of Timbuktu, visiting a replica of the St. Peter's Basilica in the middle of a jungle in Ivory Coast, experienced hyperinflation in Ghana and meeting a local businessman named “God Knows”, visiting a voodoo python temple in Benin, eating porcupine armadillo and wild boar, meeting a prince in Cameroon (no, really, a real prince), eating a boa constrictor in Gabon, entered a war zone in Cabinda, riding a cargo plane out of a war zone and into Luanda where the plane two months later crashed with no survivor, being held hostage overnight by the Angolan army general in their camp, buying a diamond in Namibia said to be worth $70,000 but bought it for $500 and feeling proud of himself but then in Tanzania a diamond merchant said that it was glass, attending a football match in Mozambique, hiking the mount Kilimanjaro, eating crocodile and porcupine in Kenya, getting into the front page of a local Dar es Salaam newspaper, sleeping at a police station in Sudan, and spending Christmas on top of a fisherman’s boat overnight while travelling from Muscat to Karachi.
On the third year of their journey, they went to a horse race and placed some bets in Pakistan, washing their sins in the Ganges during the Kumbh Mela (a Hindu festival that is the largest ever gathering of mankind, with some 60 million people over a few weeks), visiting the Golden Temple of the Sikhs at Amritsar, Taj Mahal in Agra, toured Calcutta’s red-light district led by a group of madams, becoming the first non-locals to drive across the border of India and Myanmar since World War 2, eating kangaroos in Australia, cutting through the middle nothingness part of Australia (from Darwin via Ayers Rock to Adelaide), dining with an Australian MP in Melbourne, chilling in New Zealand Tahiti and Bora-Bora, reaching the southern-most point on Earth: Ushuaia at Tierra del Fuego, visiting what Rogers says as more impressive than any man-made thing he had ever encountered: the Moreno Glacier at Lake Argentino, watching Brazil’s football national team World Cup qualifier match at the stadium, being gloomy on Paraguay as a nation but pleasantly surprised with the development of Bolivia, visiting Potosí (once the largest and most famous city in the Western Hemisphere and the wealthiest city in the world in the middle of 16th century, playing detective in La Paz looking for the person who stole his investment money in Bolivia 10 years ago (and found him and met him in Lima, Peru), looking at the magnificent Panama Canal, eating iguana in Honduras, eating tequila worms in Mexico City.
And the best part of re-reading this book is, I read it during the time when I'm taking a break from serious reading, where I tend to read 2-3 books at once, with the tally of 4-5 books a month and with the annual goal of reading 50 books a year. I've reached that number on September, and now I'm taking my time in reading one book at a time. And for this book, I tend to read and stop and google the country and the politics or economic situation that Rogers discussed in 1999-2001, to see whether they have changed in 23 years, such as how’s the Turkish Egyptian and Indian bureaucracies are now, how's Rogers' friend Zaza is now doing in Tbilisi, how's the Central Asian countries are doing now compared with 2 decades ago, how the euro as a currency is performing now, are the Koreans still have special license to sell alcohol in Mauritania, how's war-torned Angola is doing now, have the series of bureaucracy and corruption in South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Madagascar, Mozambique changed now, how’s the under-reported conflicts in eastern parts of India is doing now, how Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia are faring now (he went through these countries during the most turbulent times after the Asian Crisis 1997).
After the trip, and after this book, Rogers proceeded to become an even more global super star. But not because of this trip, but because of what he’s best at: investment. He created the Rogers International Commodity Index that puts money where his mouth at, implementing his prediction of a commodity boom that would eventually last more than a decade. And as we can see in this book, he was very well invested already before the commodity index, in the countries that he visited that he thinks were going to benefit greatly from the boom.
Now, do you get it why after reading this book I changed course and pursued life in finance? If you want to understand about the world and can only read one book, read this one.
This is part of my re-reading portion of the year. From my previous review:
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s a beautifully written book about the journey of the author, the Indiana Jones of Finance himself, through 116 countries in 3 years, which landed him in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Within the adventurous journey, he encountered the mafias in Russia, nearly died in a blizzard in Iceland and was held captive by rebel soldiers in an African war-zone. An amazing eye-opener book, it also provides us with in-depth analysis on the broad political-economic-and-social condition of each country that he visited. All of this combined with vast knowledge of history, world current affairs and his legendary investment analysis; which inspired me to alter my life to finance, start reading history and follow world current affairs.
I can’t believe that such amazing journey could occur, and so diverse knowledge can be written in a single book. But that’s the beauty of this book, and that’s why it’s number one in my personal chart.
You know that saying you never step in the same river twice, or more relevantly, you never read the same book twice? This is what happened when I read this book for the second time. Please bare with me, this is going to be a very long book review.
The first time I read this book was in 2005 when I was a marketing student aiming to get work at the advertising industry when I graduate. Back then I only read business and self-help books, having no clue about the financial market and what's history (a subject about old stuffs) got to do with the modern world. But then this book changed my entire worldview.
Through the account of his travels and direct observations on the ground, combined with his deep knowledge on history (Rogers studied history at Yale), his know-how on world politics (he did his masters on Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford), as well as his legendary analysis on the world market (he was, after all, George Soros' partner at the Quantum Fund), the book shows the vast world through multiple lenses that go beyond the usual cultural, religious, and tourism perspectives, and through a deeply personal interactions between him and the locals that he met along the way. And on top of all of this, Rogers is an old-fashioned traditional man from Demopolis, Alabama, who was raised by his father with good values and taught to be a gentleman, hence the moral compass he inserted every now and then in his journey.
The book also teaches us about the importance of planning, on taking chances and calculating our odds, on changing course if the original plan goes south real quick, and the risk management plan in case unexpected danger arises, exactly the traits - I later found out - needed to be a successful investor.
But the traits that astonished me the most was Rogers' real-time knowledge on the market, such as the US Dollar exchange rate when he tried to buy the local currencies, or knows why the price of Timber is dirt cheap in Botswana for such a good quality product, or why he wanted to buy a property in Darwin and Uruguay, why he is reluctant to put his money in Turkey even though it was booming, and many more investment stories as he travelled to the countries in person, including pulling out all of his money from his investments in Argentina after seeing it first-hand the signs that the currency, the economy, and the government are about to collapse (they did, 3 months later). I mean, I thought to myself, who is this guy? And what does he do for a living? Up until then, I was obsessed with the start-up stories of the big companies and their billionaires, I also read almost every entrepreneurial books that I can find, but I have never encountered a person like Jim Rogers before.
This book is actually Rogers' 2nd book. His first book, Investment Biker, is about his other (crazier) trip around the world: a 2-year trip circling the globe riding a motorcycle, which landed him in the first Guinness Book of World Records (the second is this trip) and earned him the nickname "the Indiana Jones of Finance", a book I eventually read when I was doing my masters degree in Finance (after ditching the advertising dream), because I wanted to follow his footsteps.
Skip 18 years later, today I'm working in the financial market, and - as Rogers keep advocating in his books and his interviews - I'm now a big reader of history, I follow world current affairs religiously, and whenever I get the chance I travel to weird places and blend in with the locals, taste all the food and adventures myself.
And now that I understand the world a little bit better compared with when I first read this book in 2005, the book is actually even better to read. Because I understand more of all the contexts that he's talking about, such as the global criminal underworld, the wars happening across the globe, the NGO scams, the weaknesses of the UN, the real function of IMF and World Bank, the troubles at former Soviet satellite states, the hyper-inflations across history, and many more, including more awareness of geography, country-specific issues, all the great places in the world and their stories, the global financial markets, and especially the last chapter which was the most boring part when I first read it, but now turned into the most fascinating conclusion.
But gaining more knowledge in 18 years also means I can now also spot some Austrian school opinions that I grew to disagree with over the years. This is what made me slowly drifted away from following Rogers, where in an interview in the book "Inside the House of Money" by Steven Drobny Rogers acknowledged the Austrian school label would be most fitting for his views, while since I studied finance, history and politics I have grown to agree more with center-left views (almost the total opposite with Rogers').
For instance, in the book Rogers partially blamed the global economic collapse of the 1930s on tariffs, quotas and restrictions on trade, while he failed to mention that the Great Depression was caused by loose restrictions (that the Austrian school advocates) in the Roaring Twenties of 1920s, and that the tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions were actually the necessary responding effects to stop the collapse to get even worse.
He also defended the WTO and its predecessor GATT, but didn't really address the devastating effects they had on countries who had to follow their laissez-faire policies of deregulation, privatization and austerity, regardless of their economic conditions. And nowhere in the book that Rogers tells the story of how Britain and the US really grew from a small nation into a global empire: through tariffs, quota, and trade restrictions, as most clearly described by Cambridge University economist Ha-Joon Chang.
However, re-reading this book provides me with a refreshed perspective on Rogers' views, that reminds me why he was such an influential figure for me as a young adult and for the way I live my life in general (“obsessed” is a strong word, but I eventually read all of his 6 books, read more books that explain his investment style, read and watch every single interview that he’s made, and even sending him an e-mail to invite him to my wedding - he didn’t respond).
And the way he explains about his [Austrian school] views, kind of make sense if you look at it from his point of view, such as his examples of the tariffs on tomatoes, steel, rice, etc. And to be fair, he did say that World Bank and the IMF have derailed from their original purpose when they were created, something that a hardliner Austrian school would never say. So, in a sense, his views is unique and not rigid towards any ideology despite being close to Austrian School.
I also get reminded why this book has been ranked number 1 in my list for so long: because above all, this is a travel adventure story book filled with surprises, bold acts, and incredible cameos. Such as meeting Iceland’s president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, dumping a local currency in a black market in Yugoslavia, encountering belly dancers in Istanbul and Baku, meeting an oligarch in Azerbaijan, got stuck in Uzbekistan when the borders are closed after someone was trying to assassinate the president, eating a snake and turtle in China, eating dog and silk worm in South Korea, eating a horse in Kazakhstan, climbing mount Fuji, became fast friends with a local Russian mafia boss, visiting a Siberian prison, got invited to a lot of strangers' wedding, running a Russian marathon, getting married at the banks of River Thames London, and visiting a Spanish winery where Magellan went to before he set sail.
In the second part of the book, we would find them crossing the Sahara desert, witnessing African butt dance in an extravagant village wedding near the Senegal-Mali border, visiting the fabled city of Timbuktu, visiting a replica of the St. Peter's Basilica in the middle of a jungle in Ivory Coast, experienced hyperinflation in Ghana and meeting a local businessman named “God Knows”, visiting a voodoo python temple in Benin, eating porcupine armadillo and wild boar, meeting a prince in Cameroon (no, really, a real prince), eating a boa constrictor in Gabon, entered a war zone in Cabinda, riding a cargo plane out of a war zone and into Luanda where the plane two months later crashed with no survivor, being held hostage overnight by the Angolan army general in their camp, buying a diamond in Namibia said to be worth $70,000 but bought it for $500 and feeling proud of himself but then in Tanzania a diamond merchant said that it was glass, attending a football match in Mozambique, hiking the mount Kilimanjaro, eating crocodile and porcupine in Kenya, getting into the front page of a local Dar es Salaam newspaper, sleeping at a police station in Sudan, and spending Christmas on top of a fisherman’s boat overnight while travelling from Muscat to Karachi.
On the third year of their journey, they went to a horse race and placed some bets in Pakistan, washing their sins in the Ganges during the Kumbh Mela (a Hindu festival that is the largest ever gathering of mankind, with some 60 million people over a few weeks), visiting the Golden Temple of the Sikhs at Amritsar, Taj Mahal in Agra, toured Calcutta’s red-light district led by a group of madams, becoming the first non-locals to drive across the border of India and Myanmar since World War 2, eating kangaroos in Australia, cutting through the middle nothingness part of Australia (from Darwin via Ayers Rock to Adelaide), dining with an Australian MP in Melbourne, chilling in New Zealand Tahiti and Bora-Bora, reaching the southern-most point on Earth: Ushuaia at Tierra del Fuego, visiting what Rogers says as more impressive than any man-made thing he had ever encountered: the Moreno Glacier at Lake Argentino, watching Brazil’s football national team World Cup qualifier match at the stadium, being gloomy on Paraguay as a nation but pleasantly surprised with the development of Bolivia, visiting Potosí (once the largest and most famous city in the Western Hemisphere and the wealthiest city in the world in the middle of 16th century, playing detective in La Paz looking for the person who stole his investment money in Bolivia 10 years ago (and found him and met him in Lima, Peru), looking at the magnificent Panama Canal, eating iguana in Honduras, eating tequila worms in Mexico City.
And the best part of re-reading this book is, I read it during the time when I'm taking a break from serious reading, where I tend to read 2-3 books at once, with the tally of 4-5 books a month and with the annual goal of reading 50 books a year. I've reached that number on September, and now I'm taking my time in reading one book at a time. And for this book, I tend to read and stop and google the country and the politics or economic situation that Rogers discussed in 1999-2001, to see whether they have changed in 23 years, such as how’s the Turkish Egyptian and Indian bureaucracies are now, how's Rogers' friend Zaza is now doing in Tbilisi, how's the Central Asian countries are doing now compared with 2 decades ago, how the euro as a currency is performing now, are the Koreans still have special license to sell alcohol in Mauritania, how's war-torned Angola is doing now, have the series of bureaucracy and corruption in South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Madagascar, Mozambique changed now, how’s the under-reported conflicts in eastern parts of India is doing now, how Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia are faring now (he went through these countries during the most turbulent times after the Asian Crisis 1997).
After the trip, and after this book, Rogers proceeded to become an even more global super star. But not because of this trip, but because of what he’s best at: investment. He created the Rogers International Commodity Index that puts money where his mouth at, implementing his prediction of a commodity boom that would eventually last more than a decade. And as we can see in this book, he was very well invested already before the commodity index, in the countries that he visited that he thinks were going to benefit greatly from the boom.
Now, do you get it why after reading this book I changed course and pursued life in finance? If you want to understand about the world and can only read one book, read this one.
Read
December 7, 2024About 20 years late to the party if I were looking for investment advice; their newborn should be packing off to college about now...
I tried to do a cursory check of how his predictions held up but it looks like the 2008 recession and 2019 troubles dwarfed any millennial volatility. Anyone else try this sort of analysis? What did you find?
As a provincial American, this was a helpful overview of more obscure countries, their climate, resources, religious and ethnic heritage and navigability.
Theories that will haunt me:
*Countries having fewer kids are going to become more peaceful -- no one wants to send their only son to war
*Borders that are straight lines were probably made by 3rd party bureaucrats in a post-war carve up. Since they didn't think through a more logical ethnic or terrain based boundary, expect more instability.
*Oligarchs drive luxury vehicles, you can find a Mercedes mechanic almost anywhere, even if the roads are non-existent
*Governments that can will print money in the run up to elections. I'm betting Rogers is more optimistic about crypto now than he was of the Euro then...
*West of Red Sea (NE Africa) is going to fight over water
*Are female sex tourists (Gambia) really a thing?! That defies my working understanding of biologically driven reproductive strategies...
I wish we heard more perspective directly from his travel partner, Paige, particularly her experiences in Muslim societies.
Am I the only one seeing these smug photos, reading this self-assured and at times indignant prose and having flashbacks to the Howell couple on Gilligan's Island? I wonder how this guy would operate at Burning Man...
I tried to do a cursory check of how his predictions held up but it looks like the 2008 recession and 2019 troubles dwarfed any millennial volatility. Anyone else try this sort of analysis? What did you find?
As a provincial American, this was a helpful overview of more obscure countries, their climate, resources, religious and ethnic heritage and navigability.
Theories that will haunt me:
*Countries having fewer kids are going to become more peaceful -- no one wants to send their only son to war
*Borders that are straight lines were probably made by 3rd party bureaucrats in a post-war carve up. Since they didn't think through a more logical ethnic or terrain based boundary, expect more instability.
*Oligarchs drive luxury vehicles, you can find a Mercedes mechanic almost anywhere, even if the roads are non-existent
*Governments that can will print money in the run up to elections. I'm betting Rogers is more optimistic about crypto now than he was of the Euro then...
*West of Red Sea (NE Africa) is going to fight over water
*Are female sex tourists (Gambia) really a thing?! That defies my working understanding of biologically driven reproductive strategies...
I wish we heard more perspective directly from his travel partner, Paige, particularly her experiences in Muslim societies.
Am I the only one seeing these smug photos, reading this self-assured and at times indignant prose and having flashbacks to the Howell couple on Gilligan's Island? I wonder how this guy would operate at Burning Man...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 5, 2019
I didn't take this book too seriously - it was a fun romp about a guy driving around the world, giving his take on things. I didn't always agree, and I wondered how limited he was - he would basically say "oh, I spoke to high placed guy" or "high placed guy wanted to see me" (it's always guys) - and well, given his reputation, I wonder how much of a real insight he received.
But of course, going through the mundane everyday conversations doesn't make a good book. All the same - this is a book published in 2003; I'm not sure how much was true then, and less is true now.
His views are clear (and very stereotypical American): free market good (no protectionism), (hardworking and entrepreneurial) immigration good, US foreign policy should be more non-interventionist...
There are some parts that I liked too, like: "Everyone blames the foreigners when the economy goes south. Always. It is human nature to blame others, and it is the same all over the world". Or the observation that the European women travelled regularly to Gambia on sex holidays.
Also, he admitted that his contribution to the wedding was providing the preacher - poor Paige, who organised everything else. I liked that his father told him that, as best man, it was the best man's obligation to "provide the groom with a way out. It was his job to tell the groom that it was okay if he had changed his mind and to explain to the assembled masses that there would be no wedding that day".
3/5 entertaining read
But of course, going through the mundane everyday conversations doesn't make a good book. All the same - this is a book published in 2003; I'm not sure how much was true then, and less is true now.
His views are clear (and very stereotypical American): free market good (no protectionism), (hardworking and entrepreneurial) immigration good, US foreign policy should be more non-interventionist...
There are some parts that I liked too, like: "Everyone blames the foreigners when the economy goes south. Always. It is human nature to blame others, and it is the same all over the world". Or the observation that the European women travelled regularly to Gambia on sex holidays.
Also, he admitted that his contribution to the wedding was providing the preacher - poor Paige, who organised everything else. I liked that his father told him that, as best man, it was the best man's obligation to "provide the groom with a way out. It was his job to tell the groom that it was okay if he had changed his mind and to explain to the assembled masses that there would be no wedding that day".
3/5 entertaining read
January 1, 2024
Adventure Capitalist by Jim Rogers.
3/5 rating.
Book #94 of 2019. Read August 9, 2019.
This book follows Jim Rogers' 3-year trip around the world through 116 countries, recounting his business and travel stories along the way. As the title suggests, Jim is a pure capitalist through and through. This left me agreeing with some of his ideas but being appalled at other times at the opinions this view caused him to have. If you can take the whole book with a grain of salt, it is definitely interesting to hear about different cultures through the eyes of a man who has done well for himself financially.
Quotes:
"It is when things start to go wrong and people look for someone to blame that one's religion, culture, and race become noticeable."
"The steel industry in the United States has been going on this way for fifty years. Every few years the industry persuades the government to protect us from the foreigners. 'We just need to reorganize.' But instead of reorganizing, getting more efficient, and figuring out what the foreigners are doing right, politicians just keep upping the protection."
"Instead of talking(ital) about the new South Africa, we have to build(ital) the new South Africa, said Mbeki. We have to stop talking. We have talked enough. We spend all our time going to conferences, and nobody is doing (ital) anything."
"Whenever you hear somebody tell you that investing is different this time, grab your money and run. It is never different."
3/5 rating.
Book #94 of 2019. Read August 9, 2019.
This book follows Jim Rogers' 3-year trip around the world through 116 countries, recounting his business and travel stories along the way. As the title suggests, Jim is a pure capitalist through and through. This left me agreeing with some of his ideas but being appalled at other times at the opinions this view caused him to have. If you can take the whole book with a grain of salt, it is definitely interesting to hear about different cultures through the eyes of a man who has done well for himself financially.
Quotes:
"It is when things start to go wrong and people look for someone to blame that one's religion, culture, and race become noticeable."
"The steel industry in the United States has been going on this way for fifty years. Every few years the industry persuades the government to protect us from the foreigners. 'We just need to reorganize.' But instead of reorganizing, getting more efficient, and figuring out what the foreigners are doing right, politicians just keep upping the protection."
"Instead of talking(ital) about the new South Africa, we have to build(ital) the new South Africa, said Mbeki. We have to stop talking. We have talked enough. We spend all our time going to conferences, and nobody is doing (ital) anything."
"Whenever you hear somebody tell you that investing is different this time, grab your money and run. It is never different."
August 5, 2024
Superficial and shallow, although easy to read and entertaining.
My main issue with the book is how little effort the author gives to understand the regions he's traveling through, their cultures, and their historical context. Because of this lack of deeper understanding and focus on anecdotal stories, the entire book lacks any real depth and is full of inaccuracies that are easy to spot for anyone who has some knowledge of the countries described.
For example:
- In the 2nd chapter, the author claims that Lithuania is a country of 2 million, when in fact it was 3.5 million at the time (a more than 40% inaccuracy).
- When he's describing Turkey's application to join the EU he's predominantly focused on cultural differences, pinning everything on it being a Muslim country. This is part of the picture, but he completely ignores the geopolitical elements of this decision - Turkey being allowed in the respective weight of other leading EU countries (namely France and Germany) would be severely diluted.
So it's no surprise most of his predictions for the future were completely wrong.
Lastly - one of the reasons I started reading this book was to get more knowledge on finance and investment decision-making, but the book offers little value there too.
All things considered, the book is a mishmash that doesn't know or care which genre it is aiming to be.
My main issue with the book is how little effort the author gives to understand the regions he's traveling through, their cultures, and their historical context. Because of this lack of deeper understanding and focus on anecdotal stories, the entire book lacks any real depth and is full of inaccuracies that are easy to spot for anyone who has some knowledge of the countries described.
For example:
- In the 2nd chapter, the author claims that Lithuania is a country of 2 million, when in fact it was 3.5 million at the time (a more than 40% inaccuracy).
- When he's describing Turkey's application to join the EU he's predominantly focused on cultural differences, pinning everything on it being a Muslim country. This is part of the picture, but he completely ignores the geopolitical elements of this decision - Turkey being allowed in the respective weight of other leading EU countries (namely France and Germany) would be severely diluted.
So it's no surprise most of his predictions for the future were completely wrong.
Lastly - one of the reasons I started reading this book was to get more knowledge on finance and investment decision-making, but the book offers little value there too.
All things considered, the book is a mishmash that doesn't know or care which genre it is aiming to be.
March 7, 2020
I have Jim’s investment biker four stars, so naturally this one can only get one less. This journey compared to Jim’s bike journey a decade ago was longer and significantly more expansive. So a lot of it has been rushed through, but that’s the only way to write a 350 odd page book describing a 2 year journey. The adventure element is perhaps much less pronounced than the previous journey - especially when you have a crew following you all the way through filming you, interpreters joining you across the country and the likes. The insights are still profound, but they have the same repetitive views that the previous book carried - anti statism, anti foreign aid etc. Jim is a strong man and one whose thirst for adventure is so contagious that you will invariably end up deciding that you should do a similar journey in your life at least once, even if not for the same purpose.
I enjoyed reading the book and someone who likes the travel and investment genre will like it. But if you are purely looking for inspiration on world travel and overland adventure, look elsewhere.
I enjoyed reading the book and someone who likes the travel and investment genre will like it. But if you are purely looking for inspiration on world travel and overland adventure, look elsewhere.
August 1, 2022
In January 1999 Jim Rogers and his fiancee Paige Parker set in a yellow custom-built Mercedes 4×4 convertible with a trailer. Altogether they visited 116 countries, covering 152,000 miles, completing the trip in January 2002, by parking the car outside their Riverside Drive home. This is the story of their trip, in which Rogers applies decades of investment experience to evaluating the economic prospects and investment potential of every country they visited. He believes that you can get an immediate feel for where a country is headed economically by driving through it - including its level of bureaucracy, the existence or otherwise of a black market, the state of its currency sound including whether it is freely tradable and how corrupt the place is. One of Rogers’s biggest fears at the time was that the world was headed for a period of blinkered protectionism along similar lines to that experienced in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which would prove economically disastrous.
January 31, 2023
As an adventure book, it was great. One just has to acknowledge that Jim Rogers of course comes from a place of privilege: who else can be sponsored by Mercedes, be welcomed by government officials around the world, and stay in the best "homely" abodes (not the swanky hotels, of course, that would break the "rugged" narrative). Otherwise the experiences were valuable.
As a book about Rogers' economic beliefs, I'd call it hit or miss. It's basically conservative neoclassical economic takes left and right. His view on countries would either be "they're gonna break up" or "they're gonna overtake the US in some capacity," which I mean woah slow down there. But at least he presents his case well enough to be understood.
That last chapter (about his economic thoughts) was a bit of a jarring experience from the rest of the book (which was an adventure with well-timed economic bits), which threatened a drop to 3 stars for me. Thank God that last section brought the book to a great close, and reverted the focus to what the book was about: the journey.
As a book about Rogers' economic beliefs, I'd call it hit or miss. It's basically conservative neoclassical economic takes left and right. His view on countries would either be "they're gonna break up" or "they're gonna overtake the US in some capacity," which I mean woah slow down there. But at least he presents his case well enough to be understood.
That last chapter (about his economic thoughts) was a bit of a jarring experience from the rest of the book (which was an adventure with well-timed economic bits), which threatened a drop to 3 stars for me. Thank God that last section brought the book to a great close, and reverted the focus to what the book was about: the journey.
September 3, 2017
This book is really a great escape because Rogers takes you around the world and makes sure to describe all the unique traits of each region. I particularly like how he was not doing simply touristy things but also living with the locals there. He is definitely quite brave for driving through war zones and jumping through all sorts of hoops through out his trip. His little bits of history are also interesting but sometimes lengthy.
I would suggest this book as a long term read. He gets quite repetitive and lengthy so you may need to take a break every once in a while or you will lose interest.
I would suggest this book as a long term read. He gets quite repetitive and lengthy so you may need to take a break every once in a while or you will lose interest.
December 26, 2020
If you can't afford to travel whole world than read it. if you want to learn global investing read it.
if you are an IAS aspirant from India than you should read his review on india. Because indian text books will not give you that perspective. (in his first book he didn't tell about india ). He came in india 2001. He said indian don't know economics in 2016 and criticized indian budget 2019 saying they are buying vote which was right during corona virus crisis..
When you will read this book you will know why he said like that.
After reading entire book you will learn how America become super power despite Britain and which country will be super power in 2050 and how.
if you are an IAS aspirant from India than you should read his review on india. Because indian text books will not give you that perspective. (in his first book he didn't tell about india ). He came in india 2001. He said indian don't know economics in 2016 and criticized indian budget 2019 saying they are buying vote which was right during corona virus crisis..
When you will read this book you will know why he said like that.
After reading entire book you will learn how America become super power despite Britain and which country will be super power in 2050 and how.
March 24, 2018
This is not a book on investment. Jim Rogers is more of an thrill seeker, who coasts around the world dishing out advice on how other countries need to run their economies, with little understanding of the local cultures. I only read this book because I enjoyed two of his other books and envy his spirit for adventure. However, unlike "Investment Biker." This previous book about his motorbike trip around the world ended each chapter with a list of companies, and recommendations on buying them or not. Maybe he was going through the honeymoon phase with his new wife Paige.
September 6, 2018
Generally a fun read but obviously reading it over a decade after it was written, many of the learnings no longer applied. Overall, he's got a great perspective on the markets, has a keen ability to read into what is happening or will happen in countries based on political and social happenings. And his travels also just make for fun storytelling. I would say I enjoyed much of his writing but didn't love the book and got bored at parts, but I suspect I'd have been more entertained if I'd been reading the book fresh off the presses.
June 15, 2020
Follow the trip around the world of the adventure capitalist Jim Rogers and his wife in a yellow Mercedes car. It’s interesting to read his thoughts regarding culture and future of visited countries. 20 years after the expedition we can say he was right in almost all his visions.
Although sometimes it seems he aims a wannabe Hollywood story exaggerating some events, it’s an interesting road trip book to read.
Although sometimes it seems he aims a wannabe Hollywood story exaggerating some events, it’s an interesting road trip book to read.
June 13, 2022
A man living out and chronicling my personal life’s dream delivers yet again with Adventure Capitalist. A 3 year, 6 continent, around-the-world adventure that details his personal, cultural, geo-political, and economic findings in all of the places most people don’t go. Reading this almost 20 years after it’s publication allows insight into what predictions he had came true, which didn’t, and what about the big Us has changed and what hasn’t. 5/5, will attempt to replicate
August 29, 2022
Nice read, especially 20 years later! Great to read the opinionated comments of the author and to see how they have turned out or not. I was unaware of many countries, their historical contexts, and conflicts; especially in Africa. The last 1/3rd of the book is less about the Ride around the world but more about the author's investing idealogy and this part was less enjoyable for me personally and felt disconnected from the rest of the book.
March 20, 2021
It's solidly in the ok range. It wasn't a terrible book, nor was it a great book. While his views on the various countries were interesting, I was hoping he would go in depth a bit more about them. And every conversation he documented was always with some highly placed person in government or finance.
June 20, 2018
Entertaining read on travel, cultures, and investment. Recommend to all thrill seekers and adventurers. At times, Rogers sounds a bit too pretentious to my taste, but the fantastic content overwhelms that downside entirely.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews