16 Books That Shaped Us

It's the Book Episode!!! Marko and Jacob turn their usual geopolitical sparring into a book draft: eight titles each, no rules, no rankings, just the texts that actually built their analytical muscle <3 The cousin picks span philosophy, fiction, psychology, and history. Machiavelli's The Prince opens the list, followed by texts on Marxism, biography, social psychology, and intelligence tradecraft. Marko favors frameworks that discipline thinking; Jshap leans on fiction and history to capture how humans behave. Tune in to hear more :)

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Timestamps:

(00:00) - Welcome and Reading Habit

(01:06) - Heat Talk and Air Conditioning

(03:34) - Book Draft Setup

(04:54) - Machiavelli The Prince

(16:20) - Talmud and Contrarian Thinking

(23:14) - Marx Das Kapital

(43:33) - Analyst Biases Primer

(46:15) - Framework Over Rolodex

(50:03) - Weber Versus Marx

(53:53) - Power And Human Nature

(01:02:47) - Realism And Institutions

(01:12:48) - Haunting Endings And Paradigms

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Referenced in the Show:

The Prince — Niccolò Machiavelli (Marko Papic)

The Talmud — Jewish corpus of rabbinic commentary, no single author (Jacob Shapiro)

Das Kapital (Capital) — Karl Marx (Marko Papic)

All the King's Men — Robert Penn Warren (Jacob Shapiro)

The Person and the Situation — Lee Ross & Richard Nisbett (Marko Papic)

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis — Richards J. Heuer Jr. (Jacob Shapiro)

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism — Max Weber (Marko Papic)

Master of the Senate (The Years of Lyndon Johnson series) — Robert Caro (Jacob Shapiro)

Lord of the Flies — William Golding (Marko Papic)

Politics Among Nations — Hans Morgenthau (Jacob Shapiro)

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics — John Mearsheimer (Marko Papic)

The Search for Modern China — Jonathan Spence (Jacob Shapiro)

Why Nations Fail — Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson (Marko Papic)

A Bend in the River — V.S. Naipaul (Jacob Shapiro)

The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944–45 — Ian Kershaw (Marko Papic)

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions — Thomas Kuhn (Jacob Shapiro)

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Geopolitical Cousins is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com

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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.

Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com

Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416

Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap

Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe

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Marko Papic is a macro and geopolitical expert at BCA Research, a global investment research firm. He provides in-depth analysis that combines geopolitics and markets in a framework called GeoMacro. He is also the author of Geopolitical Alpha: An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future.

Marko’s Book & Newsletter: www.geopoliticalalpha.com/marko-papic

Marko’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marko-papic-geopolitics/

Marko’s Twitter: https://x.com/Geo_papic

Marko’s Macro & Geopolitical Research at BCA: https://www.bcaresearch.com/marketing/geomacro