An honest look at an appalling situation, exemplified by the tragedy of the illegal-alien-bearing ship the Golden Venture. At first Kwong's (Asian American Studies/Hunter Coll.; The New Chinatown, 1987) dates seem wrong: Surely he is describing the 19th-century slave trade, not present-day smuggling of illegal Chinese immigrants. But the setting is the present, and transporting people from the Chinese province of Fuzhou to America is as profitable for Chinese ``snakeheads'' today as was the earlier commerce in human beings conducted by Europeans. The voyagers get to pay off the debt incurred by family members to finance their horrific trip by laboring for years under inhumane conditions for less than minimum wage. How could this be happening? Kwong's central thesis is that illegal immigration must be understood as a labor issue. Aliens have always filled the demand for cheap labor in this country, and powerful economic forces exploiting this supply of labor are no less present today than in the past. From the produce fields of California to New York's sweatshops, employers depend on illegals not only to keep their labor costs down, but also as a key weapon in the fight against a strong labor movement. The established unions have been worse than useless in response to this tactic, with their institutionalized and isolated leadership able to think of nothing beyond ``Buy American'' campaigns. Legislation to curb immigration is popular but expensive and relatively ineffective, and employers have wielded political clout to insure that laws prohibiting the hiring of illegals are easy to violate and rarely enforced. Kwong leaves no doubt that the fundamental cause of the trade in illegal immigrants is not the greediness of the foreign snakeheads, but rather that of American capitalists who demand labor so cheap, only illegals can provide it. Ultimately, the only hope Kwong sees for improving this situation is a renewed and committed labor movement—a very dim hope indeed.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1998
ISBN: 1-56584-355-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
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
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