A fascinating, well-rooted theory of being human, with guideposts to increasing awareness.
Cromwell explores “notions of the infrastructure of human functioning”—via the building blocks of constructs—that result in who we are.
In the author’s scheme of things, we all pull from the continuous flow of experiential input elements that we gather into sets and then fashion through discrimination (sameness/difference) into constructs that will confirm our anticipation of events. With these constructs, we build a constellation of associated constructs that are processed in an ongoing cycle—“a given function belongs to a particular segment of the cycle”—and in their variations and options come how we are human and individually build our reality. Constructs are a rich stew and as Cromwell draws their salient aspects—the anticipatory tags we invest them with, the verbal tags we give them so as to share them with others, how reification makes them into fixed qualities that (to our detriment) ignore or resist other ways of understanding, the positive and negative weights we assign to them—and does so in mesmerizing detail, an incantatory progress of forks taken in the road of life. At the same time, the author describes how constructs can be tools of openness—“All knowledge in science must entail observation within the context of doubt,” “What event can one observe that would disconfirm this formulation?” —in a constructive alternativism that is scientifically grounded, deeply humanistic and commonsensical, where, hopefully, for instance, the self hungrily takes in experience to shape and reshape constructs that in turn shape our way of being in the world. Exercising an acuity sharpened by years in the laboratory, Cromwell approaches our understanding of things as reflected in different knowledge domains (from physics to psychology to religion), anabolic and analytic cycles of creation, the role of memory in depression, selective perception, the dilemma of never communicating with another person in full congruity, the pairing of constructs into separate chains of thinking and doing, how words control us more than we do them. What gives Cromwell’s work such rigor and heft is how he melds these, and many more, facets into a flowing whole, a cycle but not a closed system, one ever available to new ideas.
A fascinating, well-rooted theory of being human, with guideposts to increasing awareness.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2010
ISBN: 978-1450239202
Page Count: 504
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
