On Books That Have Shaped Me

Greetings.
It was bound to happen that some days of the #UgBlogMonth Challenge would be skipped. However, on the third day we are expected to present our favourite books. That might be too much of a challenge for me. So I'll flip the topic and list some books that have shaped my world view.
I'd like to point out I do not read a lot of novels. I mainly dabble in the "boring" ancient texts and history.

Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet

Robert Downey Jr's movies of the great detective (especially the Moriarty character) inspired me to seek out the Sherlock books. A Study in Scarlet is the first in the series, and the pseudo monologue in which Sherlock explains his "Science of deduction" was one of my best parts about the book. From deduction I appreciated the importance of data collection and the scientific method.

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment."

Niall Ferguson's The House of Rothschild

The Rothschild family were the biggest players in the nineteenth century bond market, and subsequently shaped the modern financial system. Ferguson also debunks some of the conspiracies surrounding the Rothschild family, mostly fueled by anti-semitism. My interest in economic history began with this book, and I've had to seek out other texts in Economic history like Ferguson's The Ascent of Money and Friedman's The Great Contraction.

"Rothschild . . . destroyed the predominance of land, by raising the system of state bonds to supreme power, thereby mobilising property and income and at the same time endowing money with the previous privileges of the land."

Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of Power

I forget which brother provided me with a soft copy to this book, but I recall it was among the first books I read during the A'Level vacation. Greene, like Ferguson, is an impressive researcher, and he draws on examples from texts spanning over 2,000 years of human history to make his case for laws governing strategy and man management. Once I put down this book, I sought out texts written by Herodotus, Plutarch, Miyamoto Musashi, Ovid, inter alia. This ignited my interest in classical literature.

"When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet."

Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings 

Miyamoto was a Japanese samurai who published his principles on strategy and honour in this text. Honour and Bushido are important to the Japanese, and any gentleman as well. Bushido code is akin to Japanese chivalry, if one may call it that. From this book, at one point I was reading haikus, although I'm yet to complete The Book of Tea.

"... there is timing in the Way of the merchant, in the rise and fall of capital. All things entail rising and falling timing."

Mathias Semakula Kiwanuka's A History of Buganda Kingdom

I read this some two years ago, as part of research for a book in which Kiwanuka was one of the subjects. The book questions some preconceived origins of the kingdom, especially those set forth by the colonial writers. From this I proceeded to seek out other texts by Ugandans (and Africans); Karugire's A Political History of Uganda (I've blogged about his description of pre-colonial trade) and Kaggwa's The Customs.

"... the growth of knowledge is after all a matter of historical recovery."

Ceteris Paribus.