by Adam Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 25, 2017
Alternately engaging and exasperating dispatches from a conflicted nation.
A report from India at a point of enormous transition—and the news is never really good.
As the Economist’s former South Asia correspondent, now based in Paris, British journalist Roberts (The Wonga Coup: Guns, Thugs and a Ruthless Determination to Create Mayhem in an Oil-Rich Corner of Africa, 2006) offers a kind of resigned love letter to his adopted country of five years, taking India’s fondness for hyperbole literally with an ironic focus on the four terms it often uses to regard itself: “superfast, primetime, ultimate nation.” Breaking these down, the author equates “superfast” with the economy; “primetime” with politics; “ultimate” is its relations with others countries like China, Pakistan, and America; and “nation” means how the country sees itself. The diversity of the world’s largest democracy is both a boon and a drawback, and the economic enrichment since the 1990s is scattershot. Roberts explores both the poorest area, the rural northeast (“landlocked on the wrong side of Bangladesh”), where tea-pickers make less than $1 per day, and the most affluent, Gujarat, home to the highly motivated nationalist Hindu prime minister Narendra Modi. Despite the progressive steps the nation has taken toward its citizens’ well-being and national health, the author must drop caveats at every milestone: while the youthfulness of the country points to a dynamic future workforce, one-third of India’s population is stunted and underweight; family dynasties like the "Sonia-and-Singh Show” clog avenues toward liberal promise; tech dreams are derailed by corruption and faulty infrastructure; 120 male babies are being born for every 100 females, pointing to the most alarming demographics in South Asia; the egregious treatment of the environment and dearth of basic health services (in 2016, “130 million Indian households lacked toilets”), electricity, and education; and Modi’s government’s abysmal sectarian relations. Ultimately, there is no comparison to China, already eons ahead, and India’s need for political will is crying out. So what next for the Asian juggernaut that has not quite delivered?
Alternately engaging and exasperating dispatches from a conflicted nation.Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61039-669-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014
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
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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