Next book

GAMES PRIMATES PLAY

AN UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATION OF THE EVOLUTION AND ECONOMICS OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

Maestripieri (Evolutionary Biology/Univ. of Chicago; Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World, 2007, etc.) rejects the notion that “natural selection has left its mark on human mental processes but not on contemporary human behavior.”

Comparing human mental predispositions to computer algorithms, the author suggests that much of our social behavior is hardwired. He scoffs at the idea that recently evolved, uniquely human qualities such as “our new language abilities, our new ability to think and act morally, our new emotions and feelings, and our new cognitive ability” have revolutionized the way we act. Instead, Maestripieri believes that in most everyday social situations our default action is to rely on ancient solutions, shared with our primate ancestors, in dealing with problems. While not denying our “amazing artistic, scientific, and scholarly achievements,” the author writes that we “solve everyday social problems by resorting to the ancient, emotional, cognitive and behavioral algorithms that crowd our minds.” To make his radical claim plausible, Maestripieri recasts primitive society in the image of modern free-market ideology, using the analogy of cost-benefit-analysis to describe how primates trade grooming for sexual privileges. In the same vein, the author writes that dominance/submission relationships pervade our society and are in fact crucial to maintaining harmony in marriage as well as in the competitive public domain. He compares corruption in his native Italy, where nepotism is apparently key to social advancement in the army and academia, to kinship relationships among primates, and he describes a culture of cutthroat competition in American universities, where academics use peer review and tenure as weapons in the struggle for their own career advancement. The cynicism of the author’s message is made more palatable by his lively wit.  

 

Pub Date: April 10, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-465-02078-2

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Basic Books

Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012

Next book

THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

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

Next book

THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

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

Categories:
Close Quickview