How to Rule the World. By Theo Baker. Penguin Press(著名出版社企鹅兰登书屋旗下品牌); 336 pages; $32. Allen Lane(企鹅图书的英国出版品牌); £25
《如何统治世界》。作者：西奥·贝克。企鹅出版社；336页；32美元。艾伦·莱恩；25英镑
THERE ARE good reasons to be sceptical of(对……怀疑) this book. The author, Theo Baker, is just 21 years old. His subject(主题、话题) is his Stanford undergraduate years(本科阶段)—a time that feels important while living through it, but is rarely of much interest to anyone else.(一段经历时觉得重要，但他人很少感兴趣的时间)
有充分的理由怀疑这本书。作者西奥·贝克年仅21岁。他的主题是他在斯坦福的本科岁月——那段时光在经历时觉得重要，但很少会引起他人的兴趣。
Yet “How to Rule the World” is worth reading. It follows in the tradition of(沿袭……的传统) “One L”, Scott Turow’s account of his first year at Harvard Law School, and William F. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale”, a jeremiad(哀歌、痛斥) against that university’s leftward drift(左倾趋势). Mr Baker offers an inside look(内部视角) at a world-shaping(塑造世界的) institution. Stanford has “a strong claim…to be the greatest university in the world”, with an annual budget larger than that of 116 national governments. Behemoths including Google and Netflix were founded by its students and alumni.
然而，《如何统治世界》值得一读。它延续了斯科特·图罗的《一年级》和威廉·F·巴克利《上帝与人：耶鲁》的传统，后者是对耶鲁大学左倾趋势的痛斥。贝克提供了一个内部视角，审视一个塑造世界的机构。斯坦福大学“很有可能是世界上最伟大的大学”，其年度预算超过116个国家的政府。包括谷歌和Netflix在内的巨头都由其学生和校友创立。