European equity book reviews of the year

“Imagination is everything. Knowing is nothing.” Anatole France

The sighs of the techno-optimists on the investment team this year are particularly loud, as from this colleague’s desk erupts another tirade about the negative impacts of AI on, well, pretty much everything. Luddite, narrow-minded, are the rebuttals.

Well ok, the machine is coming, we had better get on board. And why bother trying to defend something as small fry as reading when we’ll all have plenty of time for books once AI has made working redundant.

In the optimist’s defence, there has been a moral panic about pretty much every new introduction into the public sphere. Reading was no exception. Early romance novels in the 18^th century were feared for their ability to warp the minds of young women so that they could not tell fantasy from reality, especially with regard to how men would pale in comparison to the dashing figures in the novels. “I have seen a scullion-wench with a dishclout in one hand, and a novel in the other, sobbing o’er the sorrows of Julia” exclaimed a writer.¹ In many ways, more a complaint about a form of anti-patriarchal escapism than the act of reading itself one suspects. In the US, dime-store novels of the early 19th century were blamed for turning boys into murderers and thieves. Even libraries were condemned, often compared with gin-shops or brothels.

Moral panic is usually short lived, and sure enough, other forms of diversion or escapism soon replaced reading. Is the same true of AI and its impact on learning? On reading? On memory? It is difficult to say, although studies do seem to suggest a correlation between those who even sporadically read an entire book and improved concentration levels. With half of adults in the UK no longer reading for pleasure – blaming difficulty focussing and social media distraction amongst other things – it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to imagine that the sheer power of AI to bypass almost all reading will have a negative effect. Comfortingly however, the plasticity of the brain means it remains a muscle that can be rehabilitated.² All it takes is to open to that first page.

This year we again look back at some of the books that have, for various reasons, piqued our interest. 

Geopolitical Alpha: An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future by Marko Papic

The years of geopolitics (a loose term for anything an investment professional cannot fit into a DCF model) playing second fiddle to monetary policy are well behind us. 2025 was the archetypal year of geopolitics pulling the strings within markets, and it behoves us to work on our toolkit in this regard, even when it may appear counter to our investment philosophy.

Marko Papic is a well renowned geopolitical strategist, with a penchant for refreshingly forthright language and self-awareness of the limitations of forecasting. His book is based on the premise that investors should focus on material constraints, not policymaker preferences. Or to put it another way: “Preferences are optional and subject to constraints, whereas constraints are neither optional not subject to preferences.” Through analysis of the Euro crisis, Brexit, the first Trump administration, and the Covid-19 pandemic, the author draws out a framework through which an investor can get slightly closer to forecasting outcomes. The drawing out of the fallibility of this framework versus others speaks more to the complexity of forecasting than any particular model, but Papic is adept at mapping out the path for investors to analyse without ‘the rose-coloured glasses of personal preference.’ 2025 has shown in alarming technicolour the push and pull between policymaker preference and material constraints. The west is undergoing a transformative rupturing, driven by the Trump administration. How far this will continue is determined far more by the constraints on the administration through law, the social contract, and the brutal reality of economics, than by the preferences of a single President.

Liberalism and its Discontents by Francis Fukuyama versus The New Leviathans by John Gray

A key tenet of liberalism is the pursuit of rational consensus. This last word feels almost alien in an increasingly polemic world and one where debate rages over whether both liberalism and liberal democracies have irreversibly fractured.

There is some consensus between Fukuyama and Gray in their respective books. This is that Liberalism has failed in many regards. Consensus is also found over what both deem to be a cultural undermining of the philosophical thought by sociocultural critics on the left preaching illiberalism. Identity politics is inherently detrimental to liberal democracy as it pits the perceived value or repression of groups against each other in a zero-sum game. So rational consensus is left to die.

But this is where the books diverge. Gray is adamant that we are already post liberalism. His evocation of Hobbes is a fatalistic one: ‘nothing is more real than the nothingness within human beings…killing for the sake of words gives meaning to their lives. In this they exercise the privilege of absurdity.”  Gray’s world is not perfectible, a mere pyre of self-promoting pieties.

Fukuyama breathes more hope, even if the remedy to liberalism’s ills seems far out of reach. At present there is hand wringing and self-analysis. Motion not action. But for the author who posited that the collapse of the Soviet Union had left liberal democracy and capitalism as the only games in town, he is undoubtedly able to recognise the shifting sands beneath. His is a defence of liberalism (the book summarises the concept in a particularly succinct and effective way) with diagnoses of the ill winds blowing through it. The false promises of the populists on the right, the illiberalism of the indoctrinated progressive left, the centre cannot hold and yet it must. With many western democracies groaning under the pressure from all sides, it will be interesting to see whether the fatalist or the optimist is proven right. But in a last grasp for consensus, this reader does note one thing: never underestimate the power of humanity to trip over itself.

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers our Lives by Siddarth Kara

King Leopold II may – thankfully – be a distant memory, and we can all pick up our smart phones and judge his atrocities in the Congo with the suitable level of abhorrence. But as it so happens, our digital-dependency has unlocked another pillaging that once again sullies the landscape of the country. Kara writes an engaging, immersive and truly dispiriting account of what the global thirst for cobalt has unleashed, and his first-hand expeditions around the country uncover the tip of what is a devastating iceberg. History may not repeat itself, but it does often rhyme, and in this case, the rhymes are coming thick and fast.

Consumer electronics have driven an insatiable desire for the element, and fortunately there are lots of companies ready to meet this demand thanks to the country’s rich natural resources. Whilst there are some larger corporate-grade mines that run new technologies, Cobalt Red follows the stories of artisanal miners, who live in stone-age conditions and toil day after day for a pittance, akin to forced labour as they struggle to survive in conditions that will, in all likelihood, kill them too young. The lives and the stories are deeply affecting and may make you reappraise the latest gadget that appears under your tree this Christmas.

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein

A common argument is that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead in their field should start early, focus intensely, and accumulate as many hours of deliberate, repeated practice as possible. The theory being, that if you dabble or delay, you will fall behind the people who had a head start. Arguing against this idea of narrow specialisation leading to success, David Epstein’s book Range presents a compelling argument that a breadth of experience and interdisciplinary knowledge often proves more valuable. Epstein provides examples across various fields, including some of the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters, and scientists, showing that early specialisation is the exception, not the rule. 

A notable example is the comparison of Tiger Woods, who began training to be a golfer before he was one year old, with Roger Federer, who dabbled in a range of sports before he “began to gravitate more toward tennis” in his teens. Despite starting later than his peers who had worked with coaches from early childhood, a late start did not impede Federer’s development. His approach allowed him to accumulate a wide range of athletic skills, coordination, and endurance from football, swimming, skiing, and other sports, that ultimately benefited his tennis career later on. Epstein argues that this “sampling period” of different activities, followed later by focus and increased structure, fosters better long-term performance and adaptability. These skills, arguably, are especially pertinent in an era where we have powerful, specialised, AI tools at our fingertips. Individuals with wide-ranging knowledge can ask the right questions, synthesise AI's output, connect disparate ideas, and apply singular insights.

The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore

Based loosely upon the true story of Tarrare, Blakemore’s novel is both disturbing and deeply moving. The protagonist has an insatiable appetite, one created through the actions of an abusive father figure, before escaping his clutches. A childhood spent in the company of a travelling troupe results in his appetite morphing into a performing trick, where dead animals, objects, and vast amounts of food are consumed for the entertainment – and horror – of the crowds of revolutionary France. The more appalling the act “the more pleasure he brings them.” As life, the revolution, and disease progress in and around him, Tarare rots, and is driven to heinous lengths to satisfy his all-consuming appetite.

An insatiable hunger, an emptiness, and social dissatisfaction are the themes that run through this superb novel. If one can stomach some of the more grotesque expositions of Tarare’s consumption and expulsion, the reader is given the opportunity to truly luxuriate in some lavish writing. Given the zeitgeist of sparse, pared back prose, Blakemore’s unrelenting lyricism and desire to wallow in both the beautiful and the macabre is deeply refreshing. You are unlikely to read anything as unique and oddly melancholy as this anytime soon.

^{1 The Novel-Reading Panic in 18th-Century in England: An Outline of an Early Moral Media Panic, Ana Vogrinčič, 2008
2 Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, Maryanne Wolf, 2018}