In this captivating and original exploration of the state of the global ecosystem, journalist and novelist Reiss (Flamingo, 1989, Saltmaker, 1988) travels between New York and the Amazon rain forest, the better to underscore the critical interdependency between the two worlds. Brazil's highway BR-364, linking the towns of Porto Velho and Rio Branco, has been called the ``most controversial road in Latin America,'' praised in Brazil for enabling poor migrants to settle previously undeveloped forests but reviled in the States as ``a straw sucking up the Amazon.'' In traveling this road to determine the effects of ten years of development, Reiss makes it clear that the damage is real. Cattle ranches have transformed forests into infertile wasteland; poorly planned dams have put hundreds of acres of trees under water; Indian tribes have been decimated by disease; immigrant populations are overflowing Porto Velho's slums; and families of rubber-tappers are being crowded out of the forests by landowners. Reiss's interspersed reports on how Brazilian disasters affect life in the States literally brings these issues home: a New York teenager is cured of Hodgkin's disease by a drug distilled from an Amazonian plant even as US researchers work to keep thousands of other species of Amazonian flora from being obliterated; senior citizens are rescued from overheated apartments as North American summers grow hotter, possibly from the greenhouse effect; discussions proliferate concerning increased war and poverty in Third World countries as natural resources are exhausted. Reiss concludes that effective corrective actions by developed countries should include more ``debt-for-nature swaps''; conservation programs that take into account the needs of poor Brazilian settlers; pressure on the Brazilian government to enforce forest zoning and monitor bank-funded development; and increased individual activism. The rain forests will inevitably continue to shrink, Reiss points out. The question is, will we learn in time to preserve and cultivate nature, or face more plunder, extinction, and death? Lively, informative journalism.
Pub Date: March 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-671-68700-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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