Books I've been reading in July

I started reading Deng Xiaoping (2011), a book I read some 10 years ago but much to garner after a period of a decade in light of China's rapid progress in the world. It happened that 1st July 2021 was the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) founded in 1921. Since the late Deng Xiaoping came into power in late 1978, almost half a billion of people (500 million) have been lifted out from poverty and however one sees it, it is a remarkable achievement, unrivalled in the world. I was joking with my friend who is also interested in Chinese history that China now has more than 30,000kms of high speed train while Sabah since independence still retain its British left-over track with the train running at the same speed of the 1960s! What is the use of democracy if leaders take advantage of the system to enrich themselves and not the nation's development and that her citizens' welfare comes second?

Then early in the month I ordered two books from Amazon.com thinking that it would not reach me by my 57th birthday but Amazon is amazing in that the two books arrived at my house in less than 2 weeks. I have been reading Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of USA and my interest in him is manifold, not least in Hamilton's role in drafting the Federalist Papers with James Madison, both of whom are acknowledged as the Fathers of America's Constitution. I am about half way through a book of more than 800 pages and the second was on "Christianity, Genocide and Rwanda" where the author discusses the role of the Christian church in Rwanda in the killing of 1 million people over 100 days in 1994. I am now in my 3rd chapter and what a read! Rwanda has about 90% population claiming Christianity as their religion and yet many Christians were involved in the murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing. By statistics, it is about 55% Roman Catholics, 30% evangelicals and 5% Seventh-Day Adventists and a small number of other denominations. And I also read a book now in e-book form by Cicero, a Roman politician and philosopher before the time of Christ who lived to old age and he wrote a marvellous book called, "On Old Age". Hamilton's and Rwanda's books I will read on in August and I have learned much from each one of them.