Library

“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” Mark Twain

Interdisciplinary Thinking is Critical for Investors

Everything in life is related, and the most successful investors allow their curiosity and knowledge to span as much of reality as possible. Forming a mental model of the world; a framework of ideas, attitudes and beliefs rooted in the understanding of the various disciplines of life is essential for long-term investors. The core disciplines include history, psychology, sociology, mathematics, engineering, biology, physics, chemistry, statistics, economics, philosophy and theology. As capital allocators, we must study and understand the components that make up our world, its thoughts, actions and motivations. This is only possible by using an interdisciplinary approach which recognizes the interconnectedness of life and the need to form a true worldview.

We believe that a crucial aspect of investment management is to understand the specific investments, but this is not enough. We must also understand the context that forms the backdrop in which the securities we invest in must operate. This is why we strongly believe in the need for a library, as an essential part of our investment business. At RockLinc, one of the first things our clients see when entering our offices is our in-house library. One of our most important activities is to read great books.

For simplicity we break our library into the following core disciplines:

Biographies, Economics, Finance, Financial History, Philosophy, Sociology and Psychology and Theology.

We have listed a handful of wonderful books (many out of the mainstream) in each of our areas.  Each one of these books has helped us in the formation of our investment worldview.

Recent Releases

After America: Get Ready for Armageddon_{by Mark Steyn}

Biographies

The Bin Ladens (An Arabian Family in the American Century)

Googled (The End of the World as We Know It)_{by Ken Auletta}

Intellectuals_{by Paul Johnson}

When Character was King (A Story of Ronald Reagan)_{by Peggy Noonan}

Economics

Basic Capitalism and Freedom_{by Milton Friedman}

The Resourceful Earth_{by Julian L. Simon and Herman Kahn}

Wealth of Nations_{by Adam Smith}

The Economics (A common sense guide to the economy)_{by Thomas Sowell}

Finance

Security Analysis_{by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd}

Currency Wars (The Making of the Next Global Crisis)_{by James Rickards}

Value Investing (A Balanced Approach)_{by Martin J. Whitman}

Financial History

“There is no better teacher than history in determining the future… There are answers worth billions of dollars in a $30 history book.”  Charles T. Munger

Lords of Finance (The Bankers who Broke the World)_{by Liaquat Ahamed}

The Ascent of Money_{by Niall Ferguson}

When Money Dies _{by Adam Fergusson}

This Time is Different (Eight Centuries of Financial Folly)_{by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff}

Too Big To Fail_{by Andrew Ross Sorkin}

Philosophy

The History of Philosophy (9 Volumes)_{by Frederick Copleston}

Pushing the Antithesis (The Apologetic Methodology of Greg L. Bahnsen)_{editor Gary DeMar}

The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer (5 Volume Set)_{by Francis A. Schaeffer}

The Victory of Reason_{by Rodney Stark}

Sociology and Psychology

The Road to Serfdom_{by Friedrich A. Hayek}

The Death of Character (Moral Education in an Age without Good or Evil)_{by James Davison Hunter}

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations_{by David S. Landes}

Democracy in America_{by Alexis de Tocqueville}

Theology

Institutes of the Christian Religion_{by John Calvin}

The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism_{by D.A. Carson}

Lectures on Calvinism, The Stone Lectures of 1898_{by Abraham Kuyper}