America’s leading right-wing humorist (not a very crowded field, admittedly) turns to that dismal science, economics. There’s no need to find your college notes, however, since Samuelson had it all wrong, according to Prof. O’Rourke (Give War a Chance, 1992; All the Trouble in the World, 1994; etc.). The libertarian comedian first offers a succinct primer on the workings of Wall Street that is largely accurate and entirely fun. It’s a difficult subject: “One minute we’re loading our possessions on top of the Ford and fleeing the dust bowl. The next minute we’re buying dust futures on the Chicago Commodity Exchange.” So reporter O’Rourke travels, tax deductibly, to divers parts of the world to determine why some places prosper and some just stink. Albania, ruined by avarice and pyramid schemes, is awful. Sweden is a pleasant place but too socialist to make it, according to our dubious analyst. Cuba is a mess; Tanzania, another mess; Russia, a puzzle (and a mess); Hong Kong, a prime example of capitalism (but destined to be a mess); Shanghai, clean (but a financial mess). The author disses the Third World—and the Second, too—wonderfully, and concludes, like many before him, that the free market is a moral device like no other. Well-defined rules may be necessary, but laissez-faire is the ultimate answer. A nature lover chained to a tree will save one tree, says O’Rourke; a financial pirate, however, provides “schools, roads and U.S. Marines, not to mention Interior Department funding to save any number of trees and the young idealists chained thereto.” (We are not told who, save the idealist, is going to divert enough from the leathernecks and the clear-cutters to save those trees). It’s all selective blarney, of course, and a funny, pungent paean to the glory of free enterprise as well. (First printing, 150,00; $150,000 ad/promo; author tour; radio satellite tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 8, 1998
ISBN: 0-87113-719-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Taking issue with intellectual Francis Fukayama, who posits the end of history, business strategist Ohmae (The Borderless World, 1990) more plausibly prophesies the eventual demise of the nation-state, because it has become ``an unnatural, even dysfunctional, unit in terms of which to think about or organize economic activity.'' Writing with his customary brio and clarity, the Tokyo-based, MIT-educated consultant makes a persuasive case for the arresting proposition that sovereignty is increasingly irrelevant. Characterizing borders as a cartographic illusion, he observes that what he calls ``the four I's''—industry, investment, individuals, and information—now flow across frontiers with little hindrance. As commercial enterprises capitalize on market opportunities at the ends of the earth or closer to their home bases, however, traditional governments remain in thrall to outdated notions of national interest and to the importunate demands of parasitic constituencies seeking shelter from economic rivalry. While central governments are still major players on the world stage, Ohmae insists that they have lost the capacity to adapt to change, let alone respond effectively to its challenges. He documents the significant extent to which nation-states remain focused on parochial issues during an age when real-time information is the common coin of industry and distance has become economically immaterial. The resulting power vacuum has been filled by what the author dubs region states, geographic territories oriented toward the global economy, not their host countries. Cases in point range from Baden-WÅrtemberg, San Diego/Tijuana, and Wales through Korea's Pusan perimeter and Hollywood, which has profited greatly from the warm welcome it extended foreign capital, whether from the Japanese or Rupert Murdoch. Elegant perspectives on what the socioeconomic future might hold from a past master of the geopolitical game. The engrossing text has helpful tabular material and graphics throughout.
Pub Date: July 3, 1995
ISBN: 0-02-923341-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
An eloquent, brave call to Jewish covenantal fidelitybut a jeremiad that may go as unheeded as that of the prophet himself. The author, a congregational rabbi in Los Angeles and founder of a synagogue consulting firm, is as anti-Reform and anti-Orthodox as he is anti-Zionist and anti-secular. The book's courage is never in question, however; God is the clear hero and ``chief survivor'' in a work that attacks ``civil Judaism's'' false idol of Holocaustism and (secular) Zionism's ``idolatrous belief that only the State of Israel can ensure Jewish survival.'' Jewish survival merely to spite Hitler is meaningless, explains Goldberg, in an America where more Jewish children have been lost to assimilation and intermarriage than were killed in Europe's crematoria. The author cites biblical prooftexts to show that secular Judaism's cult of victimhood offers neither a successful strategy for Jewish continuity nor any moral currency. But just when the average reader might be won over by the insightful glimpses into the central Exodus-Sinai story of Judaism, Goldberg goes on to equate expelled Hamas terrorists to innocent, exiled Jews. The author is so post- post-Holocaust that he wonders why Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust high priest, was silent when rioting Palestinians were sent to detention camps. After alienating Zionists, he dares a Christian-style appeal to disaffected Jews by positing the Holocaust and rise of Israel as the ``Jewish People's `Easter': raised up from the Good Friday of the Holocaust, brought back from the dead, made alive again by the power of God!'' Goldberg would blame the Orthodox for not converting non-Jews, and the Reform for doing it so flippantly. Why should Jews survive? Not because they owe it to the six million Holocaust dead, concludes Goldberg, but ``because they are the linchpin in [God's] redemption of the world.'' There are ample chapter notes and a full glossary. Goldberg's erudite passion deserves the ear of the masses.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-509109-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
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