A searching reexamination of economic doctrines that draws fresh insights from simple premises.
According to former corporate strategist Szeser’s intricate treatise, the physics of energy flow largely determine how prosperous an economy is.
The author lays out a sweeping vision of economic history informed by the science of energy transformation. He casts the economy as a system in which the energy available in foodstuffs, coal deposits, and other natural resources is converted into useful work. The efficiency with which we convert that energy, which is dependent on our technology, then determines how much we can produce, consume, accumulate as wealth, and invest in infrastructure, he asserts. The growing size and complexity of companies and economies generates new inefficiencies, he says, which can only be alleviated by technological innovations; these, in turn, determine a society’s prosperity and thus constrain its culture and politics. Economies with basic technology and low energy efficiency can only be organized by coercion and predation, Szeser contends, while those with advanced tech and high energy efficiency can afford to be more egalitarian and democratic. He further asserts that capitalism fosters more democratic societies than socialism does, as the latter tends to be mired in inefficiency and authoritarianism. Szeser applies these ideas to a raft of economic phenomena, from the origins of ancient despotic regimes based on irrigated agriculture to the discontent surrounding globalization, which is forcing people to increase their skills and competitiveness to survive in a vastly larger market. Szeser elaborates his principles in often ingenious analyses, including a tour de force account of how cheap, powerful video technologies make it easier for novice directors to make films—and harder for them to draw attention in a glutted market that demands increasingly higher standards of technical proficiency. Szeser’s lucid prose translates sophisticated concepts into evocative metaphors: “One of the more persistent misunderstandings in various economic theories…is the assumption that an economy left largely to itself…will still drift toward disequilibrium. It is as if a boat rocking on waves were, by its very nature, tending toward ever greater rocking and capsizing.” Economists and casual readers alike will find much provocative food for thought in these pages.
A searching reexamination of economic doctrines that draws fresh insights from simple premises.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2026
ISBN: 9788397452749
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
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A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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