A vivid and refreshingly values-driven view of managing family fortunes.
An entrepreneur and financial advisor explains his dream for generational wealth.
Polk has written this self-help guide, he says, to “foster a readiness that transcends monetary wealth” and has organized his thinking around what he call three “laws”: “The footprint of your life will become the blueprint for your legacy” (“what matters is not what we bought, but what we built”); “Your family’s collective purpose will determine its longevity” (“a purpose to develop and maintain family, thereby growing a healthy community and ultimately a flourishing society”); and “The method and means by which wealth is accumulated will shape your family’s lineage” (“when money is used to enable that which cannot be bought or sold”). Polk’s elaborations on these laws effectively highlight his determination to inspire families to use “raw introspection” while contemplating their legacies. To that end, he opens his book with the intellectual exercise of writing his own obituary. Indeed, he ably grounds his narrative in his own story, from his birth in small-town Alabama to an adulthood that would take him to places all over the country, and all over the world, where he would build and sell companies, be a wealth manager, and work toward poverty reduction in places that were financially struggling, including Haiti.At the age of 25, he founded Arlington Family Offices, a wealth management firm driven by his dream of a world where “money is only valuable if it does good.” The book has an occasional weakness for jargon that frequent business book readers will find familiar (“In that way culture is curious—having more to do with a deep-seated understanding that finds its home within an organization whose beliefs resonate”). However, Polk compensates for this with generous amounts of heartfelt enthusiasm. His descriptions of the birth and growth of his company, Arlington, is the book’s strongest dramatic thread; he tells it with such gusto that he’ll likely win over skeptical readers.
A vivid and refreshingly values-driven view of managing family fortunes.Pub Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 9798887507149
Page Count: 176
Publisher: ForbesBooks
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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