A painfully convincing history of how both political parties decided that worldwide free trade was a good thing.
A new world order.
As the last century ended, a popular Washington consensus held that the market had all the answers and that bringing China into the global trading system would cement a peaceful future. That seemed to work out until it didn’t. It’s a discouraging story skillfully told by Lynch, global economics correspondent for the Washington Post. He reminds us that America’s industrial production has been declining since the 1950s and that automation, not foreign competition, remains the biggest factor. Obsessed with cutting costs, American businesses were already moving to Mexico and other nations, but everyone thrilled to China, which had discarded “Maoist idiocy” to open a titanic market to world entrepreneurs. The world was getting richer, and the world’s richest nation could only benefit by trading in this immense, supposedly free market. Giving President Clinton most of the credit, Lynch describes his 1990s crusade for globalization. Business leaders and congressional Republicans were enthusiastic. Labor unions and Democrats were not, but many were won over by promises of government benefits and retraining for laid-off workers. This never happened. Almost everyone agreed that a free market would bring democracy to China; increasingly prosperous citizens would demand it as they had in other nations (Spain, Taiwan, South Korea, Chile). This also didn’t happen, but globalization did make the U.S. wealthier. From 2000 to around 2015, inflation and prices were low, but the 2.4 million jobs lost created great resentment, along with the feeling that China was playing dirty and muscling in on our status as world leader. The political climate soon turned uniformly anti-China. Lynch dismisses President Trump’s solutions, which emphasize tariffs and jingoism. Lynch’s own proposals for international cooperation and a generous safety net are political poison today.
A painfully convincing history of how both political parties decided that worldwide free trade was a good thing.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781541704060
Page Count: 416
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
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
© Copyright 2026 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.
