An insightful, compelling introduction to the intricacies of Chinese business and life.
An American expatriate in China explores the country’s culture, citizens, and economy in this open-minded meditation.
Moreau, now retired and living in Beijing, arrived in China in 2007 to run a glass factory for an American corporation and experienced a sink-or-swim immersion in its sometimes-baffling, always intriguing mores. His memoir-cum-reflection covers everything from Chinese etiquette, holidays, and cuisine to the country’s medical system, police force, and geopolitical ambitions. This debut book traces China’s idiosyncrasies to the deep imprint of Confucian and Taoist philosophies. In contrast to the West’s “linear” and “deductive” logic, based on clear cause-and-effect relationships and moral absolutes, Moreau argues, Chinese society is infused with “inductive” and holistic reasoning that takes the world as a given and values social harmony above rigid ideals. The result, he contends, is that the Chinese are pragmatic and flexible but incurious and lacking in innovation. These broad generalizations are sometimes overdrawn and look for philosophical rationales where more prosaic explanations might do. (For example, Chinese business executives’ preference for making informal compromises with government demands, rather than standing on legal principle, probably owes more to the nation’s lack of an independent judiciary than to Confucian precepts.) Moreau’s examinations of day-to-day life and habits include discussions about the difficulty of learning to read and speak Mandarin, the irrepressible anarchy of Chinese driving, the tightknit bonds of Chinese families and folkways and the difficulty foreigners face in coping with them (his advice is to be proudly foreign—the Chinese expect it), and the official crackdown on, um, funeral strippers. Moreau expertly examines Chinese business culture and writes shrewdly about subjects ranging from how to navigate rabidly hard-nosed Chinese business negotiations—the silent treatment is his secret weapon—to the increasing difficulties that Western companies, addicted to set-in-stone “process” and paperwork, face in China’s hypercompetitive domestic marketplace. Moreau’s well-informed but highly readable and entertaining prose strikes a nice balance between revealing anecdotes and thoughtful analyses. Westerners interested in or traveling to China can learn much from his engaging observations.
An insightful, compelling introduction to the intricacies of Chinese business and life.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5170-0886-4
Page Count: 322
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Astute examination of a stymied system.
A veteran reporter explains the loss of compromise in contemporary American politics.
Los Angeles Times national correspondent Brownstein writes proficiently about the Red/Blue divide, demonstrating how it plays out not so much among voters as in the halls of Congress, where partisanship has virtually destroyed cooperation between Republicans and Democrats. Ignore the overzealous title: There is no civil war, but rather a “dangerous impasse,” as the author writes, where party loyalty and ideology now prevent efficient government action on pressing national issues from health care to immigration. Brownstein provides much-needed perspective by examining the history of modern American politicking, from the four highly partisan decades beginning with the 1896 McKinley-Bryan election to the “golden age” of cooperation in Congress extending from the presidential administrations of FDR to Lyndon Johnson, when politicians were less polarized. Politics became more combative from 1964 to 1990, writes the author, as rising special-interest groups of the Left and Right gradually helped form the Democratic and Republican party “bases,” and Congressional floor debates filled with rhetoric aimed at TV audiences. At the same time, cultural values replaced class as the focus of national politics. The GOP became the party of culturally traditional, churchgoing suburban Americans, and the Democrats attracted primarily singles, seculars, homosexuals, nonwhites and others more comfortable with urban diversity. The Republican strategy under President George W. Bush has exploited and deepened these differences, says Brownstein, fostering a hyper-partisan system that rewards party discipline and discourages compromise. The author traces the roles of the media, lobbyists and other factors, and argues for reforms—restoring the Fairness Doctrine, for example—to create a less confrontational politics of consensus. For all their disagreements, notes the author, voters are less polarized than Washington politicos and would welcome national leadership that reconciles, unites and gets things done.
Astute examination of a stymied system.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-59420-139-4
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Arens, a former Israeli foreign minister, has written an embittered but insightful and illuminating book about what he, as a conservative, sees as a severe breach of faith. The party that broke its covenant with Israel, according to Arens, wasn't a jealous and capricious Yahweh: It was the current protector of the Jewish state, the United States. When Arens arrived in Washington in 1981 as the Likud party's newly appointed ambassador to the US, he was determined to communicate the Begin government's message with conviction. Upon meeting President Reagan, he felt like he was with an old friend. But Reagan's foreign policy counselors—notably James Baker and George Bush— were another matter. When Israel bombed Iraq's reactor in 1981, Baker and Bush contemplated punitive measures, and did likewise when Israel invaded Lebanon a year later. And so the stage was set for what Arens feels was a radical deterioration in relations when Bush became president and Baker secretary of state. Arens writes that the Bush administration tried to muscle the Likud government, in which Arens now was serving as foreign minister, into concessions to the Palestinians. As Arens sees it, this amounted to unprecedented interference in Israeli domestic affairs and was responsible for Labor's victory over Likud in 1992—but also, ironically, for Clinton's victory over Bush the same year, because of defections among US Jews from the Republican camp. While his take on the 1988 US elections is wrong, Arens provides much more than a bitter tirade toward Bush and Baker. A former engineer who was largely responsible for the creation of Israel's formidable aerospace industry and who served as a technical adviser to several Labor governments even as he was rising in Likud, Arens is as good a guide as any to the small, often claustrophobic world of Israeli politics. Animated by a sense of betrayal, Arens makes penetrating observations about political leaders and situations, and historical conundrums.
Pub Date: Feb. 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-671-86964-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1994
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