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I am a changed person now after reading this book Kochland by Christopher Leonard. This book has riveted the importance of money in me. Till now, I was fairly cavalier when it came to the money matters, but I am wiser after completing this book. The book instills the power that money wields, and it can sway the governments� decisions, policies, laws and what not! Being from India I was not aware of the intricacies of the governments� actions in the US, as I did not follow the developments thoroughly. I often wondered how and why the environmental measures on greenhouse gases (GHGs) took a backburner, despite being one of the burning issues in the President Obama’s election campaign. This book has answered the how and whys of the questions that I had in my mind after reading a few books on Climate Change.

While I was reading the book, I came to know what it takes to be the largest privately held company in the largest economy of the world. Though I am not a fan of all that took place for the company to move to the upper echelons of the economy, I do understand that real life is a combination or a web of plethora of circumstances, challenges, issues, and what not. It takes the mind of someone like Charles Koch to navigate through all the maze that forms in real life and make the industry that he and his brothers inherited into one of the largest conglomerates in the world. I am a fan! And I would like to read about the Market-Based Management (MBM) philosophy of the promoter of Koch industries.

As I was reading the book I was thrilled and at the same time bewildered to read about the environmental regulations that Koch industries exploited to stay in production. I was able to understand what, how, and why they exploited the loophole in the environmental regulations to stay compliant yet blowing the rules to smithereens (I could identify myself with Heather Faragher in the book). However, in the very next chapter of the book the author talked about commodities trading, that is about the futures and options in the stock market. I must admit that being financial illiterate that chapter was hard on me. It let me ponder why an engineer Brenden O’Neill can learn about stock trading and I, being an environmental engineer, can’t. As I said in the beginning that I am a changed person, this very person has kindled my thirst to understand the stock market. I may not be an active investor from now on, but I will certainly make decisions about investing whatever little amount of money that I earn.

I want to conclude after reading this well researched book that money is powerful and can alter the course of actions if used decisively. One should be judicious about taking monetary decisions. I give the book 4 stars because I was not able to comprehend everything written in the book, though it deserves a 5-star rating!