A provocative and timely call for a new approach to understanding international affairs.
A founder of a consulting firm argues for a new discipline called geofinance to meet the analytical demands of an ever changing world.
Vander Straeten (Tail Risk Management, 2017) contends that neither geopolitics nor geoeconomics is currently adequate as explanatory paradigms. Given four major trends—the increasing financialization of the world market, globalization, liberalization, and the rising significance of international markets in the wake of deregulation—a wholly new approach is necessary, one that not only captures the ways in which political currents shape the world financial landscape, but also how monetary forces profoundly impact geopolitical affairs. The author begins the book in search of a precise definition of geofinance and auditions several different iterations, but this one comprehensively covers the criteria he seems to be after: “Geofinance traditionally studies the links between financial power and geographic space, and it examines strategic prescriptions based on the relative importance of the balance of power between financial markets and nations as well as, more generally speaking, the balance of power among government-sponsored and private organizations across world history.” Vander Straeten distinguishes geofinance from its existing disciplinary competitors, discusses its methodological approaches, and makes a vigorous argument not only for its value, but also for its indispensability. The author discusses the dynamic causality that characterizes the relation between finance and politics, focusing not only on state actors, but also subnational forces like markets, private companies, international institutions, and even financially influential individuals. Finally, he specifically assesses a series of real-world case studies and issues predictions regarding the world’s geofinancial outlook. Vander Straeten is the founder and head of Value4Risk Geofinancial Risk Consulting and has more than 25 years of risk management experience behind him, an accumulated expertise that shows in his self-assured command of the material. His prose is flawlessly clear despite the often technical nature of the subject. As a result, the book is accessible to a nonscholarly audience, though it’s primarily addressed to an academic one. In addition, the author artfully balances the theoretical and practical aspects of his disciplinary proposal, explaining the intellectual framework of geofinance as well as furnishing concrete examples of its applications. In fact, one of the most striking features of the study is the running critique of the social sciences. Vander Straeten is unsatisfied with the general acceptance of causal determinism, preferring the “indeterminate complexity” that biology and mathematics generally accept. But he’s still wary of mathematics as the underpinning of a comprehensive analytical methodology. (He parenthetically provides an astute account of the limitations of big data.) The author limns an analogy between geofinance and Darwinian evolution in terms of the adaptability, progress, and the competitive striving for power of financial and political actors. But that comparison turns out to be threadbare—he could have just as easily likened his approach to Thucydides’ study of war or Machiavelli’s investigation of principalities. Still, vander Straeten makes an attractive argument for a new theoretical framework that’s both more comprehensive and more common-sensically devoted to the unvarnished exploration of human behavior than most of the social sciences.
A provocative and timely call for a new approach to understanding international affairs.Pub Date: March 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984393-17-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.
The renowned writer offers advice on information-gathering and nonfiction composition.
The book consists of eight instructive and charming essays about creating narratives, all of them originally composed for the New Yorker, where McPhee (Silk Parachute, 2010, etc.) has been a contributor since the mid-1960s. Reading them consecutively in one volume constitutes a master class in writing, as the author clearly demonstrates why he has taught so successfully part-time for decades at Princeton University. In one of the essays, McPhee focuses on the personalities and skills of editors and publishers for whom he has worked, and his descriptions of those men and women are insightful and delightful. The main personality throughout the collection, though, is McPhee himself. He is frequently self-deprecating, occasionally openly proud of his accomplishments, and never boring. In his magazine articles and the books resulting from them, McPhee rarely injects himself except superficially. Within these essays, he offers a departure by revealing quite a bit about his journalism, his teaching life, and daughters, two of whom write professionally. Throughout the collection, there emerge passages of sly, subtle humor, a quality often absent in McPhee’s lengthy magazine pieces. Since some subjects are so weighty—especially those dealing with geology—the writing can seem dry. There is no dry prose here, however. Almost every sentence sparkles, with wordplay evident throughout. Another bonus is the detailed explanation of how McPhee decided to tackle certain topics and then how he chose to structure the resulting pieces. Readers already familiar with the author’s masterpieces—e.g., Levels of the Game, Encounters with the Archdruid, Looking for a Ship, Uncommon Carriers, Oranges, and Coming into the Country—will feel especially fulfilled by McPhee’s discussions of the specifics from his many books.
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-14274-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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