More controversial and polarizing than the universal prescription for urban ills it yearns to be.
The outgoing president of Tulane University looks back on his role in the rebuilding of post-Katrina New Orleans.
When Hurricane Katrina drowned the Crescent City in 2005, it appeared as if the once-great American metropolis might never recover. The deceased bodies of poor, mostly black citizens were left for days to decompose on muddy streets, and many of those who survived the floodwaters were later denied relief at gunpoint when they tried to flee. At the same time, members of the wealthy white elite were openly talking about suddenly having a clean slate to start rebuilding New Orleans to their liking. Into that context came the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, formed with Cowen as the quarterback charged with rebuilding the decimated school system and, by extension, the city. That any impoverished child in the forsaken town ever again sat down in the classroom to study is a remarkable achievement. However, the blueprint used for that success—with its emphasis on charter schools and high-stakes testing—was controversial at the time and remains so today. Cowen skates over the particulars while continually exalting his can-do leadership doctrine. He delivers some blame to embattled former mayor Ray Nagin and his famous “Chocolate City” speech for inciting early black suspicion of the reconstruction effort. Although Cowen later takes pains to outline New Orleans’ long and tragic history of racism and social re-engineering, he seems oblivious to how the poor, black citizens of New Orleans might perceive a meeting with a group of white bankers and real estate developers in which one of his pals was quoted as saying, “I think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with that clean sheet we have some very big opportunities.”
More controversial and polarizing than the universal prescription for urban ills it yearns to be.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-137-27886-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 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
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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