Sure to be a crowd-pleaser.
There is a logic behind why some people become successful, and it has more to do with legacy and opportunity than high IQ.
In his latest book, New Yorker contributor Gladwell (Blink, 2005, etc.) casts his inquisitive eye on those who have risen meteorically to the top of their fields, analyzing developmental patterns and searching for a common thread. The author asserts that there is no such thing as a self-made man, that “the true origins of high achievement” lie instead in the circumstances and influences of one’s upbringing, combined with excellent timing. The Beatles had Hamburg in 1960-62; Bill Gates had access to an ASR-33 Teletype in 1968. Both put in thousands of hours—Gladwell posits that 10,000 is the magic number—on their craft at a young age, resulting in an above-average head start. The author makes sure to note that to begin with, these individuals possessed once-in-a-generation talent in their fields. He simply makes the point that both encountered the kind of “right place at the right time” opportunity that allowed them to capitalize on their talent, a delineation that often separates moderate from extraordinary success. This is also why Asians excel at mathematics—their culture demands it. If other countries schooled their children as rigorously, the author argues, scores would even out. Gladwell also looks at “demographic luck,” the effect of one’s birth date. He demonstrates how being born in the decades of the 1830s or 1930s proved an enormous advantage for any future entrepreneur, as both saw economic booms and demographic troughs, meaning that class sizes were small, teachers were overqualified, universities were looking to enroll and companies were looking for employees. In short, possibility comes “from the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with.” This theme appears throughout the varied anecdotes, but is it groundbreaking information? At times it seems an exercise in repackaged carpe diem, especially from a mind as attuned as Gladwell’s. Nonetheless, the author’s lively storytelling and infectious enthusiasm make it an engaging, perhaps even inspiring, read.
Sure to be a crowd-pleaser.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-316-01792-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The suspenseful tale of an employee buyout that has kept an old-line steel mill operating when many of its Rust Belt counterparts have fallen by the wayside. Drawing on apparently open access to key figures in the lengthy survival struggle, Pittsburgh-based attorney Lieber offers an absorbing account of what happened after National Steel, then America's fifth-largest producer, resolved to close its tinplate facility in Weirton, West Va. While the 1982 decision made business sense, it would have precipitated a socioeconomic disaster in the surrounding area. With thousands of high-paying jobs at stake, the community, politicians, the plant's union, and a flock of outsiders (some with ideological axes to grind) went into action. In return for sizable wage concessions, rank-and-file workers eventually acquired the Weirton complex by means of a controlling interest in a debt-burdened employee stock ownership plan. The 1984 buyout proved but the start of a long march during which the self- consciously democratic owners have had to cope with the fact that their tinplate competes not only with imports from Asia and Europe but also with such rival materials as aluminum and plastic. Constant debates about badly needed capital expenditures, contractual rights, corporate governance, and allied issues convulsed without ever quite transforming shop-floor culture. Despite frequent infighting, Weirton has retained a place in the global steel market in large measure because labor and management found ways to get along with each other at critical junctures. Lieber's narrative brings events to vivid life with deft profiles of the lawyers, union stewards, corporate executives, investment bankers, and other parties to the protracted proceedings who rose to the occasion—or failed to. A detailed briefing on a consequential deal that opened the way for more landmark transactions. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-82075-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
This blue-chip status report makes a substantive contribution to the growing body of literature of the pivotal role played by central banks in in the Global Village's financial affairs (see Marjorie Deane and Robert Pringle's The Central Banks, 1995). Former Forbes reporter Solomon's principal accomplishment is providing accessible briefings on how America's Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, Germany's Bundesbank, and lesser lights have dealt (by default) with a weary world's financial traumas over the past two decades. Cases in point include management of recurrent less-developed-countries (LDC) debt crises; coordinating exchange- rate policy to keep the value of key currencies in line with economic realities; and responding to 1987's cataclysmic stock market crash (which the author employs as a leitmotif throughout his text). While monetary authorities (who attempt to control the stability and supplies of money in their own countries) have proved adept in working together in emergencies, Solomon observes that their success at staving off disaster raises a wealth of vital issues, not the least of which is the accountability of independent technocrats whose preoccupation is containment of inflationary pressures, not job-creating economic growth. Also of concern is dominion over a volatile new order in which stateless pools of capital could at almost any time swamp a global monetary system that has lacked anchors to windward since the 1970s collapse of the Bretton Woods accord. Covered as well are the manifold failures of fiscal policy in a variety of industrial powers (notably the US), the importance of sound money to democracy, the odds on the EU's creating a supranational central bank, and the resourceful (albeit potentially ruinous) means by which political leaders seek to buy time for their reelection campaigns or other purposes. An on-the-money introduction to the financial fraternity's ruling class.
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-684-80182-5
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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