A paradigm-busting vision for the future that doesn’t shy away from the hard choices humanity might have to make to secure...
A sound economic model must include ecological sustainability, writes Cookson, a New Zealand educator, who bridges the natural sciences with economics in a quest for solutions to the planet’s most vexing problems.
Economics is the study of scarcity, but, Cookson says, most mainstream models fail to recognize the finiteness of Earth’s biosphere. A science teacher at a secondary school, Cookson earned an economics degree after his son challenged him to help bring about a better future. His debut work is an ambitious, far-ranging tome on the subject of “ecological economics,” which concludes that the planet can’t sustain the current level of human activity. With a population of 7 billion and a global economy becoming more dependent on ever-increasing consumption, Cookson says we must change course if we want to achieve widespread prosperity. He plunges into the debates on climate change, energy, food supply and international trade, probing the writings of influential thinkers like John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman and Rachel Carson. What emerges is a worldview that refuses to measure quality of life solely in terms of money. While policymakers often try to achieve prosperity by creating a bigger economic pie, Cookson proposes a less-is-more approach. He explores demographic strategies to slowly reduce the world population to more sustainable levels, and his economic models reject what he believes to be a harmful obsession with GDP growth, while advocating “balanced trade” between nations rather than free trade. There’s no shortage of doomsayers among futurists, but Cookson remains cautiously optimistic. His broad research, which is meticulously sourced and receptive to opposing viewpoints, succeeds at providing an introduction to a high-stakes, increasingly visible topic. The book is comprehensive and systematic in its presentation, though its heavy use of scientific formulas and supply-and-demand curves can make for arduous reading. To suggest less growth might challenge conventional wisdom, yet the book remains doubly valuable since it earnestly confronts dilemmas that threaten rich and poor nations alike.
A paradigm-busting vision for the future that doesn’t shy away from the hard choices humanity might have to make to secure its survival.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1479742554
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2013
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
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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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