A searing exposé that might make readers wonder how Army commanders and civilian warmongers sleep at night given the...
The shameful story of how the U.S. Army has played a role in the mistreatment of traumatized soldiers who served in Iraq, then returned to Fort Carson, Colo., to commit rapes, murders and other violent crimes.
Colorado Springs Gazette features writer Philipps grew up in Colorado Springs, the locale of Fort Carson. Earlier this decade, he began to learn about the post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) suffered by thousands of returning Army infantrymen who both saw and committed atrocities in Iraq. (The same phenomenon is unfolding among American soldiers returning from Afghanistan, but that is not the focus here.) The author looks at soldiers from one specific combat team, some of whom dubbed themselves “the lethal warriors,” patterned loosely on the now-famous Band of Brothers from World War II. As the book opens in December 2007, a Colorado Springs newspaper carrier finds one of the PTSD-disabled soldiers, Kevin Shields, dead on the street. Somebody murdered Shields, but at first police and Fort Carson authorities could not identify a viable suspect. It turns out that Shields’ colleagues from Iraq killed their comrade. Some of the rampaging Fort Carson personnel had built up criminal records before joining the military, but others had not, and certainly none had been previously convicted of a violent crime. Philipps names names as he demonstrates an entire military chain of command in denial about the very existence of PTSD. The few commanders who would acknowledge the problem refused to institute meaningful treatment or safeguards to protect innocent bystanders from assaults. However, the author does identify one military hero from the PTSD realm—Maj. Gen. Mark Graham, who took charge of Fort Carson and supported treatment programs that have reduced the carnage in Colorado Springs.
A searing exposé that might make readers wonder how Army commanders and civilian warmongers sleep at night given the disgraceful handling of traumatized veterans who fought in Iraq.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-230-10440-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
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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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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