by Robert Sobel ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 20, 2000
Conservative in bent, expansive in scope, sedulous in scholarship, often wise and wonderful. (16 pages b&w photos, not...
A rigorous, engaging assessment of the impressive post-WWII economic growth in the US by the late business historian Sobel (Coolidge, 1998, etc.).
Like the teacher he was for more than 40 years, Sobel begins with a question: “How did Americans who in 1945 imagined their futures might not be particularly bright come to accomplish so much during the ensuing fifty-plus years?” Throughout the remainder of this comprehensive work he provides a variety of answers, most of which flatter—deservedly so—his coevals, Tom Brokaw’s “greatest generation” (Sobel alludes to Brokaw’s book more than once). Sobel establishes that the GI’s returning from WWII felt “a generalized lack of confidence”—after all, they had lived through both the Great Depression and a devastating war. But they possessed, he writes, the values of “hard work and dedication” and the determination to improve not only their own lives but the lives of their descendants. Sobel argues that the most important factors fueling the unprecedented accumulation of wealth were home ownership (he has an enlightening account of the development of Levittown and the ensuing suburbia), education (he credits the GI Bill), and entrepreneurship (he discusses many ventures (from McDonald’s to Yahoo!). President Reagan emerges as a sort of cultural hero in this account: Sobel assails critics of Reagan’s economic policies (stockholders profited during the corporate-raiding 1980s, he observes) and identifies as “Reagan’s defining moment” the breaking of the PATCO strike. Sobel also leans right in his social criticism, sniping at 1960s campus radicals and at universities’ declining academic standards. His reply to the question of why so many people remain in poverty is the cold comment that “there will always be some who cannot handle capitalism and freedom.” The book ends with a sanguine view of a future with “boundless” possibilities.
Conservative in bent, expansive in scope, sedulous in scholarship, often wise and wonderful. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)Pub Date: July 20, 2000
ISBN: 0-312-20890-1
Page Count: 438
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
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by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014
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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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
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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