Parker achieves admirable clarity and focus in this sprawling, ugly, complicated story of the sugar revolution.
A rich, multifaceted account of the greed and slavery bolstering the rise of England’s mercantile empire.
Considering the myriad international influences that vied for predominance in the West Indies, London-based author Parker (Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time— the Building of the Panama Canal, 2008, etc.) wisely focuses on the pioneer British dynasties that built the sugar empires on Barbados and the English Leeward islands, such as the related Drax and Codrington clans, and later on Jamaica, the Beckfords. Sugar production was not initially an English enterprise—from New Guinea to India, Persia to North Africa, sugar-cane cultivation was carried ever westward by the Arabs, Spanish and especially the Portuguese, the last who “put to cane” the islands of Madeira, Principe and the vast colony of Brazil to corner the sugar market by the early 17th century. The enterprising Dutch elbowed into Barbados by the 1640s, creating the ideal conditions whereby James Drax, an Anglican immigrant, would learn by trial and error how to coax the fabulous new crop in the rich soil. Barbados became a magnet for the dumping of indentured servants, dissidents and the disaffected during the reign of Charles I, followed by refugees from the English Civil War, many of whom perished by ill treatment and disease within three years of arriving. However, sugar production was labor-intensive, and blacks from West Africa—already long established as labor within Portuguese possessions—were imported, apparently hardier and more tractable than the native Caribs. Parker delves skillfully into the important effects of the English Civil War, such as the passage of the Navigation Act of 1651, which created a formal system of mercantilism to benefit England’s home vessels and ports; even Oliver Cromwell masterminded a “western design” into Hispaniola and Jamaica, to less-than-successful effect. Still, the English dug in, and their treatment of slaves to wring profits from vast plantations was predictably harsh and deplorable.
Parker achieves admirable clarity and focus in this sprawling, ugly, complicated story of the sugar revolution.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8027-1744-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
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
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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