An illuminating if impressionistic appreciation of the Overseas Chinese, mainland ÇmigrÇs who down through the ages have become an economic force throughout Southeast Asia and beyondnotably, on North America's West Coast. Historian Seagrave (Dragon Lady, 1992, etc.) traces the emergence of these industrious expatriates back to the 11th century b.c. when the long-lived but repressive, puritanic, and anti- business Chou dynasty first drove the country's merchant class from the capital cities of the north. Forced to resettle in the less civilized regions of the Middle Kingdom's southern coast, the internal exiles began venturing offshore. In time, they established commercial beachheads that have survived civil strife, colonialism, world wars, and xenophobia in every country of the Pacific Basin save Japan and Korea. In round numbers, the 55 million Overseas Chinese (including those in Hong Kong and Taiwan) have a GNP estimated at $450 billion per annum, and their liquid assets probably top $2 trillion. In the course of his anecdotal narrative, the author makes a number of intriguing points about the prospering, nepotistic Overseas Chinese (for whom networking is a way of life). By way of example, a significant portion of their money has been (and continues to be) earned in the drug trade and other of the world's older professions. Nor do they shy away from bribery, partnerships with public officials, or other forms of corruption long outlawed in Western marketplaces. By Seagrave's convincing account, moreover, the loyalties of these secretive and disciplined DPs are essentially parochial, i.e., to ancestral villages and dialect communities rather than to the Chinese government. In the author's informed opinion, this pragmatic lack of allegiance could keep them from returning to the mainland in any great numbers regardless of what the future holds for the Communist regime still clinging to power in Beijing. A savvy observer's episodic briefing on an ethnic group that bears watching in a world economy no longer constrained by sociopolitical frontiers.
Pub Date: Aug. 30, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14011-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.
A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.
Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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